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Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#21

Post by Dwolb »

jeffjose wrote: post #12
Dwolb wrote: post #10

Does anyone have insight into Google's strategy on all these subscription services? Is it to legitimize previous tech endeavors to make sure they're sustainable in the long term? Does Google forecast subscription services will make up a sizable portion of revenue in the future? Is the experience better at Google than anywhere else due to the vast amount of data and new technology being created everyday? I'm not sure…

With ad revenues drying up (Adblock, general lack to interest to ads) Google is forced to look at other avenues to make money and selling stuff to people is a great way for that.

For sure that can be the case. But what does this mean then for the entire suite of Google services?

Their entire strategy up until these new paid-for services predicated on giving people free services (Gmail, Docs, search) under the assumption they could pay for the development and support with ads.

It seems like they're shifting to a model seen by open source software creators - free to use, but any extra features or support will cost extra.

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#23

Post by buro9 »

mjs7231 wrote: post #9
sowbug wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many such accounts are used by individuals for personal purposes. It's the only non-hokey way to use Gmail with a vanity domain. By now, many of us have app and content purchases tied to those accounts, and migrating from Gmail/Drive/Photos isn't practical, so we're stuck getting new Google features later or never.

Is forwarding mail to your personal gmail account from the domain registrar, postfix, or whatever else you use considered hokey? It works really nice in all instances I've done that. It even replys from the same address mail was sent to once you verify you own the email address.

That only solves one thing, email. How about the email address that appears when you want calendar invites, or hangouts, or drive sharing.

The only good way to use a custom domain with Google is to pay. Clearly a lot of us are happy doing so. I know I pay around £200 per year to Google for my one account, the storage and media subscriptions (music, magazines, etc)... But for this I get incomplete features (Now) and locked out of some services (Play Family).

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#25

Post by guelo »

Dwolb wrote: post #19
dpweb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1B YouTube users times 10% subscribe times $10/mo. Note, 1B users today in 2015 . Still growing at 40% according to their stats page. Pretty decent math.

I think it's a decent argument to say there is substantial revenue to be gained. But by claiming Google will hit 100M users paying $10 per month seems lofty unless there's something really unique about an ad free Youtube experience. Netflix has under 40M subscribers paying ~$8 per month right now.

Youtube has really cranked up the ads to the point that this becomes an attractive proposition.

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#26

Post by chcheese »

jakebasile wrote: post #17
msoad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense actually. Google Apps is for work users so you don't want to share it with your family I guess. I'm using Google Apps actually but I don't expect Google allow me to share my account with my family.

Google Apps is the only way to get an email via Google at my own domain. They used to officially support this as a method to get a consumer account with a custom domain, but not anymore as they market it only for businesses. And even if, as you say, it is "for work", why does Google force that decision upon me, the owner/operator/admin/sole employee of my one man organization? Why can't it just be a check box that sa…

+1. if in addition, you are non-US, even more services are out of reach. I love my Google Apps services with custom domain (especially gmail), but despite paying, you really are a second class citizen at Google.

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#27

Post by caf »

mjs7231 wrote: post #9
sowbug wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many such accounts are used by individuals for personal purposes. It's the only non-hokey way to use Gmail with a vanity domain. By now, many of us have app and content purchases tied to those accounts, and migrating from Gmail/Drive/Photos isn't practical, so we're stuck getting new Google features later or never.

Is forwarding mail to your personal gmail account from the domain registrar, postfix, or whatever else you use considered hokey? It works really nice in all instances I've done that. It even replys from the same address mail was sent to once you verify you own the email address.

Forwarding to gmail often ends up with the forwarding mail server getting blocked from gmail, because you end up forwarding spam you've been sent as well.

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#28

Post by kbatten »

buro9 wrote: post #16

Sigh. Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains. I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for Google Play Music, for apps, for films. But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing whether some features will even come to my account. Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997. They could easily add this capab…

Why can't you just create another email for these services? The actual email address is irrelevant for something like Google Play Music.

Re: Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan

#30

Post by buro9 »

kbatten wrote: post #28
buro9 wrote: post #16

Sigh. Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains. I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for Google Play Music, for apps, for films. But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing whether some features will even come to my account. Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997. They could easily add this capab…

Why can't you just create another email for these services? The actual email address is irrelevant for something like Google Play Music.

You end up with a fragmented and awkward experience.

Not only are you likely to pay double for some things, there just awkwardness...

I.e. if you use Google Play Music in chrome on a desktop, it defaults to the first account you signed in with... Likely the hosted one. So then you have to change it, which means a ui dance and multiple sign-ins before you can press play on what you last listened to.

If you sign in first with gmail, then other services default to the first account and you get the dance accessing other stuff.

Not to mention multiple invoices, your card in a few places.

Or that my android TV uses my hosted account and has subscriptions, TV and film rights... And I'd lose that stuff, or if I keep using the hosted on that I'd not have integrated access to play as that would be on a different account.

My photos are on my hosted account too... We have a family tablet device, what account should be used for that? I'm using sync permissions currently to restrict it to media and not email.

Basically, by not supporting products on Google Hosted domains, lots of very shitty user experiences emerge.

For those on Google Hosted, the best experience open to us is to stay fully in one world.

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