Music is an important part of my life. I have counted on it for various moments throughout my life. When it comes to streaming music, my service of choice is YouTube Music, and before that, it was Google Play Music. For some reason, YouTube Music is not as popular as other services, even though it has some very excellent qualities.
In a recent poll, readers said that YouTube Music was the preferred streaming service over the other services. By worldwide numbers and personal experience, YouTube Music still has work to do in gaining traction with music lovers.
YouTube Music has seen a lot of improvements over the last couple of years, but it's still lagging in popularity.
When I asked Harmeet Singh Walia, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, what the number of active users was for YouTube Music, he said it was one of the fastest-growing subscription-based music streaming platforms globally. It almost doubled its paid subscribers in 2021. The market share of Spotify increased from 32% in 2020 to 32% in the following year.
Hearing that the platform is seeing gains is great, and hopefully, it means that the service will continue to improve in terms of content and features. Since the fall of Google Play Music, I have gone to YouTube Music, but it doesn't mean I have gone to all of the other places for my music. I have checked out both the free and paid option of the service. I have done the same with both Amazon Music and Tidal. I don't really want to leave YouTube Music.
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One of the main reasons I like the service is the ability to upload my music to it. This is a carry-over feature from the previous version of Play Music, where someone could add up to 20,000 songs to their library. Not all of the music is available through streaming services. Adding music I like from a local band is great.
Artists can use the service to make their own music available, but they have to get distributors involved to make it available to everyone. Adding local files to your library is a big win for YouTube Music, as the service also allows users to play local files. For people who love discovering new music and local talent, it is a significant check in the service when choosing between the two.
YouTube Music has a massive library. The best music streaming services offer millions of songs in their catalogs, but none have the added boost of the largest video streaming platform in their pockets. This benefit and the feature of uploading personal content to your online library are two of my favorites. There are a few ways that YouTube Music uses its video-forward sibling.
One way is to make the video counterpart of a song easy to access while listening to it. If the service can identify the official video for the tune, you can switch back and forth between songs on the service. If you switch to the music video mid-song, it will play the video from that point, and vice versa.
I think that the power of the YouTube video library integration with YouTube Music is something many don't realize.
The video integration in its musical sibling is paying off in other ways as well. You can go directly to the video when searching for a song or looking at an artist's catalog if you jump to the video while playing the song. Sometimes, an artist will only have one-off songs, live performances, or covers available via fan uploads, so personal uploads are best. Just like a regular song, you can add those uploads to a YouTube Music playlist. If the video is pulled, it will disappear from your collection.
In a way, it has become a library for regional/local content creators to reach a certain customer base in the form of LIVE streaming, DJ MIX, Music Concert LIVE Performances, etc. Users will be given more different music options.
Obtaining a vast music library is essential to a music streaming service, but finding ways to differentiate that catalog is the real trick.
Some people don't feel that the tight integration between YouTube and YouTube Music is a good thing. Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, said that it is less popular because it is tied too closely to the service most people use for free. I don't think it's a good idea for the company to try to unify its services, instead of keeping it a separate product. It doesn't offer much value over its competitors.
Some modern amenities the service lacks from its competitors may be holding it back. I love music, and I have my favorites, but I am always looking to expand that list, and YouTube Music struggles in this area in a few ways.
It's a social thing to listen to music. Music is a place where people gather. There are no social aspects to it aside from being able to make a public playlist. The ability to like a song one of your friends just listened to is one of the great things about the service.
Music brings people together in many ways, and YouTube Music is failing at it.
Singh Walia says thatYouTube Music doesn't allow users to check out exactly what their friends are listening to or the popularity of a specific playlist as compared to other streaming platforms. You can like your friends on Facebook, but you can also listen to a song your friend is listening to, making it feel like you are with them.
It can be exciting to discover new music. I love diving into everything that an artist has to offer, even if it is a song I have never heard before. It is enjoyable to learn that a favorite artist is releasing a new song or album. The Explore tab, Discovery mix, and New Release mix on YouTube Music feel impersonal.
Learning a user's preferences is a priority for the company. This applies to all of the products of the company. For some reason, YouTube Music can't get to know me. Many of the automated lists that try to surface new music to me don't offer anything I really want to listen to. The Explore tab will have genres of music I have never heard before and will force me to scroll to find artists I care about.
How can a Google-owned music service struggle so hard to know my preferences?
I enjoy the discovery aspect of the service as well. I like to listen to new music from artists I already like and similar artists that I haven't heard before on Release Radar. It isn't very good at clarifying that a song is part of a new album release.
Singh Walia agrees thatSpotify is better for discovering music than YouTube Music. The brand seems to have more music for each genre. There are more moods and genres to choose from on the daily mix on Spotify.
These two areas are where YouTube Music struggles the most, but they don't create a make-or-break situation. The lack of podcasts could be for some. While other providers offer them in a single app, Google puts them into a separate app. It isn't going to drive me to a service to get my music and podcasts in one place.
Content exclusivity has tempted me to leave. Similar to gaming consoles and movies and TV streaming platforms, music streaming services feature exclusives such as albums, songs, and performances that can only be found on a specific platform. I am willing to watch a movie or series on a streaming platform because I will only watch it once. If I really connect with a song or album, I will listen to it constantly, and so it is incredibly frustrating to have to subscribe to a new service to access it. Not every single song or album is available on all of the streaming services.
There is room for improvement for YouTube Music. The service checks a lot of boxes in the positive column, even though it lacks in areas that some may feel are too important to overlook. The popular or cool label has been given to the services. It can be difficult to stray away from them when social pressures from within the service and outside of it are part of the equation. I wonder if it is more popular because it is good at maintaining a cool status among the general population. It is possible that this level has not been reached and become more widespread because of that.
I have my own issues with the service, but I still love it. Hopefully, it will be able to identify the areas it needs to improve and continue to make the service better. It is only up from here.
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