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

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

#122
post #82
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hah, just like Porsche having an idea of more horsepower for a monthly fee (or pay per fun afternoon's drive) or Musk's self-driving subscription idea, now it's "Pay if you want to be able to browse Instagram while listening to music"/pay if you want to be able to turn your screen off.

Friend of mine who isn't me still downloads MP3s on torrents and has no cloud subscriptions. I'm sure he's smug about this.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Then let me be the first. YouTube Music has the one feature I care about: A catalogue that includes everything from well-known music from top artists, to the random indie music that got a grand total of 10,000 views on YouTube when it was published 8 years ago. Sure I could download these songs (assuming RIAA takes its teeth out of youtube-dl) and upload them to most music players, but YouTube Music facilitates disco…

Too bad it has worse playlist management than freaking Windows Media Player from 2004. Seriously, I can't fucking find my playlists. I can't organize them. I can't search for them. I can't even easily create new ones by dragging multiple songs into them. And the icing on the cake is they get polluted with my decade old playlists from YouTube.

I absolutely detest YouTube music. It's only redeeming feature is a halfway decent radio and it's library ripped from YouTube proper. Everything else about is a worse user experience by almost every metric.

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

#125
post #102

Ugh. Unlike some others, my 'migration' worked, but YT Music sucks. Sorry to be blunt and short, but that's how I best describe it. It's in every way worse than GPM for my use. I legally buy songs, and just want to stream them. YT Music is obsessed with, after playing an upload, playing random music with ads in it, rather than say, playing the next upload. The only thing that works without much complaints is a playli…

> I can't even figure out if/how I can purchase music from it

You can't, unfortunately.

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

#127
post #102

Ugh. Unlike some others, my 'migration' worked, but YT Music sucks. Sorry to be blunt and short, but that's how I best describe it. It's in every way worse than GPM for my use. I legally buy songs, and just want to stream them. YT Music is obsessed with, after playing an upload, playing random music with ads in it, rather than say, playing the next upload. The only thing that works without much complaints is a playli…

Exactly this. Google Play Music was great because you could host your collection with them and mix it with their streaming library fairly seamlessly.

Since the announcement of GPM's demise I haven't found a single other platform that fills this niche.

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

#128

I miss original Songza. Google, could you just let me have original Songza back? You killed it with your merge to Google Music, and now its only remnants are titles to some of the playlists you try to hide and never recommend. Example: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDCLAK5uy_lmCjwO3-5S... I know Game of Thrones is super not relevant anymore, but THIS is the kind of stuff that made Songza so popular you boug…

I loved rdio but it was also killed. Why do the good services have to die?

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

#129
post #96

So, everything works for me on youtube music, except the integration with Sonos lacks the "start radio" feature, which is 99% of what I use my Sonos for. If they don't gain this feature before shutting down GPM, then I'm going to cancel my YT sub.

And that's why we need to split these huge companies. Google just doesn't care if you and all commenters of this thread cancel their subscription. Their ads are doing quite well.

Smaller companies WILL care for their individual customers.

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read that YTM has only 256 bit AAC just like YouTube. Going down in audio quality is a step in the wrong direction. There's just no point in installing 5G in so many countries when the encoding bit rates are going down for services.

Non audiophiles don't require more than 256kbps which is about the highest you can do for AAC anyway. Sure 320kbps can on some occasions be better on consumer hardware but I am not sure most will notice a difference. So maybe 320kbps but I am really skeptical of people who need more. Obviously there is a lot more to digital audio than bitrate.

I’m absolutely not an audiophile and I don’t know what Spotify does, but their audio quality has gone down the drain of late. I suspect streaming services are all trying hard to reduce costs by converging towards quality levels similar to what we had with FM radio and early MP3s, i.e. pretty shit overall but good enough to feel that pop/dance “phat bass”.
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