Google: Look, you can buy a device with less storage, and store all your MP3s in the cloud!

Me: This sounds terrible… but ok, let’s give it a go.

Google: Now that you have all your music in the cloud, wouldn’t it be nice if you paid us monthly for access to a lot more music?

Me: No.

Google: I see you switched to another app while watching a YouTube video. If you paid us extra, you could keep playing that in the background!

Me: First, why would I ever want that? It’s bad enough YouTube now keeps playing videos in a little thumbnail when I try to exit them. Second, why are you charging a monthly fee for a feature that ought to just come with your app?

Google: Hey, how about a free trial of our subscription service?

Me: No.

Google: Hey, how about we ask you every day if you want a free trial to our subscription service?

Me: Still no.

Google: Ok, I tell you what. How about we shut down Google Play Music, literally the only built in MP3 player, and then if you want to keep listening to music on your phone, you pay us monthly?

Me: Buys an iPhone.

> Me: First, why would I ever want that? It’s bad enough YouTube now keeps playing videos in a little thumbnail when I try to exit them. Second, why are you charging a monthly fee for a feature that ought to just come with your app?

It makes sense - Google can't run YouTube without ads. Ad buyers, which have ads in video form, don't want to run ads when the user isn't looking at the content nor able to easily click on their link to convert them to a paying customer (plus google never gets paid as the user probably won't switch to the app just to click the ad). They either do this or ask advertisers to make ads specifically for audio-only streams (which still makes it hard to drive conversions), but then they'd have to charge advertisers for impressions which Google has very rarely done.

I can listen to YouTube on my PC with the YouTube window in the background. I can listen to YouTube on my phone without looking at my phone. Why would you pay extra to listen to YouTube with your screen off? It might not make sense from YouTube’s business perspective, but sadly that doesn’t mean charging for this “feature” makes sense either.

Doing something that makes sense from a business perspective, even if it doesn’t make sense from the consumer’s perspective, is the entire reason things are done at companies.

Lesson: never store musics to cloud locker unless you accepted locked in.

The VLC app for Android still works though.

Which is fine, And what user preferences are for.

Then you can make YouTube music your preferred music app in your settings.

YouTube Premium is the only reason I stick with YouTube Music. I was a Google Play Music user, and that was fine. Getting both was a boon. I would say though that YouTube Music has been an overall downgrade.

Youtube music was better until several months ago, when they made some changes that ruined it for me. I haven't used Youtube for an extended session of watching music videos since those changes happened. Overall I have watched many fewer music videos since the change. This is on Youtube as implemented on Android TV.

I definitely prefer music videos over plain audio streams.