Re:YouTube Premium Lite: Ad-Free Viewing for $7.99/Month
by bsimpson on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @01:22PM
(#43270273)
I've had an account since it was Google Music All Access.
YTM wants to be a peer of Spotify in the same way that Google Music was positioned against iTunes. Google Music was actually a better product if you're used to buying music (the Library section in YTM is a total afterthought). YouTube Music assumes you're streaming. It's still primarily a music player - I think you can watch music videos through it if you try, but its main purpose is audio, and the corpus it pulls music from I assume is the same as all the music streaming services. It's not like it's playing music videos and hiding the picture.
Honestly, the experience on YTM can be a little rough. It doesn't have the level of polish that Rdio had before it. But subscribing takes the ads off of YouTube, and I can deal with a slightly rougher app to also make my streaming video experience better.
YTM wants to be a peer of Spotify in the same way that Google Music was positioned against iTunes. Google Music was actually a better product if you're used to buying music (the Library section in YTM is a total afterthought). YouTube Music assumes you're streaming. It's still primarily a music player - I think you can watch music videos through it if you try, but its main purpose is audio, and the corpus it pulls music from I assume is the same as all the music streaming services. It's not like it's playing music videos and hiding the picture.
Honestly, the experience on YTM can be a little rough. It doesn't have the level of polish that Rdio had before it. But subscribing takes the ads off of YouTube, and I can deal with a slightly rougher app to also make my streaming video experience better.