Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

support.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 358 posts

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#81

Post by kyrra »

viraptor wrote: post #50
kyrra wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Googler, opinions are my own) Agreed that it is annoying, but its interesting to look back at how we got here. Google Play Music (GPM) launched in 2011. To get music on here, I'm guessing that team had to sign contracts with the various publishers and record studios. The onboarding and licensing terms of those were likely entirely around this music streaming service. Then you have Youtube. It's been a video hub for…

I'm not sure why the licensing would impact the app in any way. They could swap the backend, keeping the better app. The background video is just one feature to add compared to trying to fix the YTM many problems.

Point taken. Maybe this was just one of many factors? I could also see that Google had products that were overlapping (Youtube and GPM), and they decided to merge them, and this is the way they did it?

I definitely had friends that used Youtube as a poor-mans spotify and would just keep the videos playing in the background on their desktop.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#82

Post by kyrra »

xeromal wrote: post #80
ewmiller wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume so. Spotify has a feature somewhat like this, but I keep it turned off because I find it annoying and distracting. It’s a bit silly to try to justify a huge move like this based on such a trivial feature, in my opinion.

I'm not sure I follow really. Any music player I've used plays in the background. I throw in some headphones and it plays without the screen being on. I'm not really sure how else it can go in the background but I know I'm missing something. lol

See: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en

> Play videos on your mobile device while using other apps or when your screen is off. Background play is available on YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids mobile apps (if these apps are available in your location).

They only allowed background play on Youtube with a subscription.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#83

Post by laverya »

Vermeulen wrote: post #21

They've had years to fix all the issues people have had with this - and yet everyone still hates it (based on Reddit / App reviews). Playing music offline is broken, browsing playlists is insanely slow, and it lacks so many basic features of GPM/other services (like actual random shuffle and not a smart radio that plays the same 10 songs). Combining Youtube Likes with the music thumbs up makes no sense - I now have l…

> Combining Youtube Likes with the music thumbs up makes no sense - I now have lecture videos that randomly play while trying to shuffle my library

If there was a way to say "no, this isn't music", this would be easily solved. But Google's fascination with "AI-only" solutions won't let that happen. (You'd think someone would be happy to have an extra source of training data!)

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#84

Post by kemonocode »

kyrra wrote: post #81
viraptor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why the licensing would impact the app in any way. They could swap the backend, keeping the better app. The background video is just one feature to add compared to trying to fix the YTM many problems.

Point taken. Maybe this was just one of many factors? I could also see that Google had products that were overlapping (Youtube and GPM), and they decided to merge them, and this is the way they did it? I definitely had friends that used Youtube as a poor-mans spotify and would just keep the videos playing in the background on their desktop.

Ah, so that's probably the reason behind the incredibly grating "Are you still watching?" modal interrupting the video.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#85

Post by sg47 »

ozmbie wrote: post #6

How is it that Google create/rebrand/close so many music and chat services over the years. While Apple have a single message service (iMessage) and a single music service (Apple Music) that have been consistently branded with constant growth and show no signs of being shut down? As a consumer I have no idea what’s going on with some areas of Google’s products. It’s a major turn off.

I have a Pixel phone and pay for Google Play Music since I have a large collection that I have uploaded. It's been extremely disappointing. I have tried switching to Youtube Music but the interface sucks. I'm tempted to switch over to the iPhone since I'm already unhappy with Google in other areas (showing news articles repeatedly for health issues that I searched for one time, not allowing me to turn off gmail for a Google account on Pixel, etc). Google has become extremely user-hostile of late.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#86

Post by arvigeus »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #63

Anyone got any good alternatives for someone who wants to listen to their offline music collection from anywhere?

I am evaluating Deezer now. Can’t say how good it supports your use case, but the UI is everything I want from a music player. Plus songs uploading

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#87

Post by dariusj18 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

My 2 cents, YouTube Music's interface is awful.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#89

Post by felipelemos »

kyrra wrote: post #81
viraptor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why the licensing would impact the app in any way. They could swap the backend, keeping the better app. The background video is just one feature to add compared to trying to fix the YTM many problems.

Point taken. Maybe this was just one of many factors? I could also see that Google had products that were overlapping (Youtube and GPM), and they decided to merge them, and this is the way they did it? I definitely had friends that used Youtube as a poor-mans spotify and would just keep the videos playing in the background on their desktop.

spoiler Big rant below:

> I could also see that Google had products that were overlapping (Youtube and GPM), and they decided to merge them, and this is the way they did it?

If it's the way they did, it was one of the worst ways anyone could think of. It baffled me how so many smart minds can work at Google and take so many terrible decisions at the same time.

This was just one in several equally stupid decisions they did. They could have dominated the messaging market by now, but they threw out that chance several times.

Sometimes I think it might have been on purpose. Maybe they are afraid to dominate too many markets at the same time and avoid a anti trust lawsuit? Because otherwise it literally makes no sense. Either this or they need to feed their stupid hierarchical loop giving senseless promotions to whoever creates a new thing that nobody asked for by destroying another thing that people were starting to use and like.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#90

Post by xnx »

ewmiller wrote: post #59
Vermeulen wrote: post #21

They've had years to fix all the issues people have had with this - and yet everyone still hates it (based on Reddit / App reviews). Playing music offline is broken, browsing playlists is insanely slow, and it lacks so many basic features of GPM/other services (like actual random shuffle and not a smart radio that plays the same 10 songs). Combining Youtube Likes with the music thumbs up makes no sense - I now have l…

I haven’t heard a single consumer express enthusiasm for the switch to YouTube music. Anyone I’ve casually talked to about it is dismissive and doesn’t really understand what it's even trying to be. If anybody has heard anything from a user's perspective that is in favor of this, I would love to hear that argument. Otherwise I can only assume that this was a typical Google move where product people internally pushed…

I was a longtime Google Play Music All Access subscriber. One HUGE benefit that YouTube Music has is the available catalog. I like a lot of obscure music and remixes that no one else but YouTube has. I also agree that it's ridiculous that YouTube Music doesn't have all the features of Google Play Music. Still this was handled much better than most shutdowns where there is no migration path. I'm glad that Google is combining some redundant services. 5 more years and they might get their chat situation in order.
Post reply on HN