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Google Music Youtube Entertainment

Google Music Shuts Down Smart Speaker Support and Music Store (arstechnica.com) 46

Posted by BeauHD from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
Google has started to shut down parts of its 9-year-old music service as it transitions people to YouTube Music. Ars Technica reports: The gradual shutdown started on Monday with the death of the Google Play Music Store, which previously let you purchase music for playback and download, as opposed to the all-you-can-eat rental services that dominate the music landscape today. Google's Music store was a section of the Google Play Store, which now just shows a message saying the feature has been removed. Google is getting out of the business of selling music entirely and now only offers a rental service through YouTube Music.

The other big feature shutdown is music playback on Google Home and Nest Audio speakers. While the Google Music app still works and you can start a playback through Chromecast, you're no longer able to start music by voice through Google Assistant devices. If you dig into the Google Assistant settings (that means opening the Google app on your phone, then hitting "More," then "Settings," then "Google Assistant," "Services," and finally "Music") you'll find that the "Google Play Music" option has completely disappeared. Now the only supported services for voice commands are YouTube Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Spotify. [...] Google Music is scheduled to completely shut down sometime this month. Right now, the only thing left is streaming via the smartphone app and the Google Music website.
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Google Music Shuts Down Smart Speaker Support and Music Store More

Google Music Shuts Down Smart Speaker Support and Music Store

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  • Another worthy product sacrificed by google. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Turboglh ( 816701 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @08:28PM (#60613044)

    I've had a google music account since it was in beta, it's been the good enough alternative to pirating, and the "substitute" in youtube music is a step backwards.

    Just like poor inbox, google has killed something good and given you a turd in it's place. Bravo Google.

    • I've had a google music account since it was in beta, it's been the good enough alternative to pirating, and the "substitute" in youtube music is a step backwards.

      I'm finding the opposite. As a long-time user of Google Play Music, I was also concerned about being moved over to YouTube Music, but I'm finding YT Music is actually quite a bit more useful All the same music is there, but the recommendation algorithm is far superior. Much better than Spotify's too. It's not perfect, in that the "custom mix"

    • Re:Another worthy product sacrificed by google. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @11:11PM (#60613376)

      I've had a google music account since it was in beta, it's been the good enough alternative to pirating, and the "substitute" in youtube music is a step backwards.

      I had been using the free ad-supported version of Play music occasionally. (Mostly when someone else in the house was using our single paid subscription to another streaming service and I was doing something like working in the yard.) It worked well enough for that, and I didn't have to install any new apps to use it.

      After they bugged me for a while, I went ahead and transferred to YT music. It turns out that it is 100% useless to me because the free ad-supported version won't work unless the screen is on.

      WTF? The damned phone is in my pocket. Who in their right mind is going to keep poking at their screen to keep it awake just so they can listen to a glorified radio?

      Maybe I'll just use the FM radio app that came with my phone instead for that situation.

    • I had a Google Music family plan. My kids could use it on their phones and really enjoyed it.

      The transition to YouTube music has... guess what... the kiddie ban hammer. They can't install YouTube or YouTube Music on their phones, nor can I, because they're under 16. So... there goes their exploration into all kinds of music. I ended up ditching it reluctantly for Spotify. Spotify is slow and cumbersome in comparison, and their Desktop app has the world's worst podcast interface (it's really, really bad), bu

  • Offline Music (Score:3)

    by Xenolith ( 538304 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @08:34PM (#60613064) Homepage
    I never wanted to use Google Play Music. I wanted to be able to call up music from my personal collection via voice. Is there a way to do that through Google Assistant?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by slaker ( 53818 )

      Kind of. There's a Plex Server integration that works, but you need a Plex Server to use that and it'll only stream to one speaker.

      I migrated my personal music collection to Youtube music and found that it didn't copy music over so much as match my carefully catalogued music with Youtube videos with similar names. It could not have been more wrong in its matching without malice being involved.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      Google Play Music let you upload your music for it to stream back, and it worked fairly well. That seems to be gone with YouTube Music.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        You can still upload music to Youtube Music, though I'm not sure whether you can play it via voice as I don't use that.

    • You can do that on an iPhone.

    • Google Play Music did this if you uploaded your personal library, which it would then stream back to you for free. However, the voice commands NEVER worked right. Asking it to play a specific album sometimes worked or sometimes would start a music station. And if it did play the album, it played the tracks out of order. This with all the tracks being meticulously tagged on my end, but Google probably simply matching on the cloud side rather than truly uploading.

  • Can someone explain to me why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @08:58PM (#60613100)
    Google Music was great. It did everything I ever wanted. Why do I care about YouTube Music? Why is that better for me or Google? It's not a better player. It doesn't support keyboard shortcuts in MacOS, like Google Music did. I keep finding bugs in it. It's ugly and has a convoluted interface. Even the name is terrible. Google Music was the perfect name. Why do we want to associate it with YouTube? They're 2 different solutions for 2 different problems.

    It's like if Apple decided the iPad is no longer going to be the iPad, but now Beats Pad...and they change the OS...and everything is worse...and like 10% of the the features from the iPad is missing from it.

    WTF is up with Google lately? They used to be so awesome but now are really determined to suck, despite having so much potential and so many advantages. Time to get a new CEO.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MeanE ( 469971 )
      I used to use Google Play music which was great but switched to Spotify because my circle of friends all used it and I found it just as enjoyable. I picked up YouTube Premium because I hate the ads on mobile and since Premium comes with YouTube Music I was hoping to ditch Spotify if it was halfway decent. It's not even close to halfway decent.

    • The YouTube brand already has a strong association with music. It's the default avenue for a lot of people to consume music. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if YouTube was the most popular platform for streaming music. Meanwhile, you're the first person that's told me they use Google Music. They probably determined more people are willing to pay for "YouTube Music" than "Google Music", and they're probably right. And as for why they want you to rent music forever instead of buy it once? That should be self

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        I use it all the time because you can upload your personal library and stream it back to yourself from anywhere without having to run your own server. It's great if your phone doesn't have enough storage to hold your entire collection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nofx911 ( 634100 )

        I had Google Play Music for 5 years and was annoyed by the forced switch to YouTube Music so I left Google for Spotify. I understand your branding point, and in all honesty, if they would have just changed the name (like they did for Google Play Movies & TV to Google TV) without messing with everything in the app I would have stuck with Google.

        I do want to point out that YouTuble Music has been available for several years and as far as I have seen has had lower subscription rates than Google Play Music.

        • Google Play music got bundled into most every Android phone. I've had phones that wouldn't let me remove it. I'm sure that helps to push subscriptions, and now they can push YouTube Music in exactly the same way. There's also likely to be some reduction in the code base and backend that they have to maintain. I wouldn't discount the possibility of there being some benefit in licensing the music as well, but I'm not so acquainted with that Byzantine structure.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Skythe ( 921438 )
      Anecdotally nobody was paying for Google Play Music and nobody outside some niche pockets even knew about it. Spotify and others eating it for breakfast = time to change strategy and leverage the big name of YT. I held out for a long time, particularly with my music collection I've been curating for 18~ years, but finally gave in more recently when it became only a few extra $'s on my wife's spotify account per month for a music easier experience

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

      Thanks for a great comment, because it gave me pause to stop and think about this as someone who's an avid user of Google's products both as a private consumer and on the corporate side.

      They're 2 different solutions for 2 different problems.

      Well, on one hand I agree with you: I have a Spotify account and have used it extensively for music for a decade now. I also consume a lot of content from Youtube, but mixing music and videos seems like an insanely dumb thing to do.

      Until I realized I basically got Youtu

      • And yet now a couople years down the line I can see the following happening: One day upon opening Youtube it will prompt me and say 'hey since you're paid subscriber of Youtube already, would you be interested in paying 4 more euros a month to add a Youtube music sibscription to it?', and at that point and after I've had a better look at the service and features, I might even consider it.

        No need to wait. Youtube Premium already includes Youtube Music Premium. If you paying for Youtube Premium just go to the website [youtube.com], log in, and try it out. There's a separate music app on Android / iOS - I wouldn't use the Youtube app for music. There are also desktop versions for Windows / MacOS / Linux, which I think are just progressive web apps, but do give you a mini-player, keyboard controls, resuming from where you left off, and a few other other features you don't get with the website.

        One place it's

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

          No need to wait. Youtube Premium already includes Youtube Music Premium. If you paying for Youtube Premium just go to the website [youtube.com],

          Thanks. Will try it out. I was confused by their messaging because it appeared to me back when I subsribed to YT Premium that they're selling the Music side separately, cause they were both selectable on their own (which, if Premium includes Music makes 0 sense, must be an oversight on their part).

    • > Why is that better for me or Google?

      Google thinks it will make more money this way.

      Not much more to say on the matter, even if we have a mountain of evidence that the experience will be dramatically worse.

      I got my songs out with Google Takeout a few weeks ago. Be careful - they will slam you into a YouTube Music free trial without consent if you follow their email links.

    • This [i.redd.it] is why. Streaming is where the industry is now, and where it's headed. As for why Google switched from an app with a good name to an app with a bad name, there's probably a similar graph comparing the relative popularity of Google's offerings and Youtube beat out Music.

  • Not surprising. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @09:00PM (#60613108)
    Google has the attention span of a 3 year old, with no adult supervision.

  • CD's (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cervesaebraciator ( 2352888 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @09:25PM (#60613170)
    I'm tempted to kill my Spotify subscription and instead buy a new CD each month.

    • https://mp3caprice.com/ [mp3caprice.com]

      I bought $100 worth several years ago and still have $30 left.

      Songs are $0.10 each and it’s legal because you are buying in good faith.

      • >it’s legal because you are buying in good faith.

        Would you mind explaining what this means, please? I've just read through the site's terms and conditions, and found there are some examples of music I'd listen to, but the price per track or album is markedly lower than those same tracks bought directly from the artist. I can't understand how a track bought from a reseller can be priced lower than that track directly from an indie artist with their own online store.

        • They're saying it's "legal" because you won't be prosecuted for not knowing it was a scam and the artists aren't getting any money.

  • Not liking Google branding anymore perhaps? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 4wdloop ( 1031398 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @10:08PM (#60613254)

    YouTube has little to no branding of Google. Perhaps they want to move out of the ever-so-more soiled "Google" brand?

    • Preparing for sale?

      If Big Government under Joey B wants to antitrust-breakup, YouTube and all associated streaming could be spun off to a new owner.

    • YouTube has little to no branding of Google. Perhaps they want to move out of the ever-so-more soiled "Google" brand?

      Seems to me it's more a matter of YouTube is a better brand for music playback. My 20-ish daughters listen to tons of music through YouTube--it's the 2020's version of MTV.

      And face it, Play Music just never got the traction iTunes had. Now that we've moved to subscription services, it doesn't have the name of Pandora and Spotify. The YouTube name is much better positioned to compete.

  • This is not a good indicator for Googles smart speaker business. IMHO Amazon is beating the pants of G in this area. Same in the alarm/camera business.

  • I think Chromecast Audio was the best piece of hardware google has ever created. There is just about zero added on value. It just works. Like Google Reader, I fear it must be killed.

    • I just hope they don't kill these any time soon without a replacement. I already wish I could buy more.

  • Google doesn't care about music, and doesn't care about what its users actually want, so I don't care about Google Music (anymore) or Youtube Music.

    I migrated all my music from Google Music to my Plex server and now with that, PlexAmp, etc I have a superior experience to what Youtube Music and Google Music could've ever dreamed of having. Now nothing goes away unless I want it to go away. Only thing that sucks is that I didn't do this years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GoJays ( 1793832 )
      I did the exact same thing... pulled all my music off of Google Music and setup a plex server on my NAS. Works great.

      Google Music allowed me to upload my music and stream it for free. That was perfect. I didn't want to be forced into a streaming subcription model, so I left. I think there are many more like us out there.

  • I downloaded a .MID file which gave me two options for playback: Google Music and Shuttle (Shuttle can't actually play MIDI files). Google Music popped up a toast that played the .MID but it also asked me if I wanted to look at YouTube Music. As soon as it set up a YTM account for me, clicking that .MID now only tries to open the file from Shuttle with no option to choose GM again.

    My main reason for not using GM was that it would only play whatever I stored in its account instead of what was on my phone (he

  • No way to buy your music as one-off payments - you have to give them an ongoing cut of your income.
    F-off, I say.

  • Hi (Score:1)

    by annaq ( 7352592 )
    Hi

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