Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
YouTube Launches New YouTube Music Service and iOS App
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Fair enough.
I prefer not to pour money down the drain, but there's nothing wrong with doing that if you like to.
That's a small-minded way of looking at it. I appreciate having immediate, elegant access to the infinite jukebox in the sky, and I tire of lots of music quickly. Why should I "pour money down the drain" buying albums I'll only listen to a couple of times? Renting music could very well SAVE me money.
I'm glad there's choice, for each music lover, to pick a path that works best for them. Calling either path "wrong" or a "waste of money" is silly. Everyone has different priorities and decides differently how to spend their cash.
In closing:
My humble advice: if you tire of a lot of music quickly, be more discerning with what you listen to.
I generally only buy what I really like. How do you know what you will like? By cultivating your ear. There is a kernel to a piece of music that can tell you if it is inspired. Buy that and nothing else.
The problem with renting music is that it is not economical if you listen to a lot of the same excellent music repeatedly. You need to think of the big picture. Do you really want to pay $10 a month when you're 75 and know exactly what you want to listen to?
The way it was for my wife and I --- we purchased so much music (back in the days of no streaming music) that streaming music was really a life saver. I have about 4,000 tracks in my library and if I had to pay for every single one, I'd be super broke - my wife listens to 3x the music I do so, even moreso (being broke) there. It's really convenient for me to say: "Hey, check out this cool song, I really like it!" and for her to play it within a few seconds for $0 additional cost (back and forth). She's got Spotify ($4.99 for educational discount (going to college)) and I have the $7.99 Google Music subscription. Yeah, I realize we don't own the music but I couldn't afford to enjoy this much music buying a CD just cuz I wanted to listen to one track on it (when I wanted).
That and... buying CDs was a bit before my time - I couldn't imagine being limited to a band per CD. I love the ability to choose a band radio on Google (based on my mood at the moment) where it bunches hours and hours of similar songs together with 1 click (from similar bands). After awhile these services learn what you like (based on what you tell them) and they find even more music that you like - music that I wouldn't otherwise have found or known about had I limited myself to CDs.
Yes, it bothers me that these bands say they get less $ per song when their music is streamed but the way I see it, I couldn't afford 1/10th the music I'm listening to now (I usually like 1 track per CD on average), so they're getting more from me than if I just bought CDs (imo). And yes, I listen to a lot of the same music over and over but I figure a bigger portion of my monthly subscription goes to those bands over the course of a year if I do that than just one lump sum payment for a CD.
This is getting very long and off topic (apologies) - I have nothing against those who buy CDs - a coworker of mine does this and goes to live concerts (I've never been to one). Sounds fun, but not for me.
On topic: I'll probably never use Youtube Music as I never watch music videos.
LOL. Your "advice" is neither humble, nor wise. Seems like you're living in a world of binary decisions, and are making the (incorrect) assumption that your particular tastes and circumstances match everyone else's. I assure you, they do not.
I'm good with my musical tastes and my exposure to new material; I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I go to tons of live music shows and enjoy the tremendous library I now constantly have at my fingertips. And I'm spending less money on music now, than I did when my only option was to buy. Not that the difference matters to me, I don't consider $120/year a lot of money. I'm blessed to be in a position to be able to happily pay for things I appreciate.
My tremendous music library also isn't taking up tons of local storage space on my devices. It's easily accessible and shareable and I love the convenience and curation all of it provides.
Not to mention, it's a monthly decision that I can change at any time. I'm not signing a decades-long contract. So maybe I'll even buy an album I want to "keep..." if I feel like it. I assure you further, the landscape of the music industry will be a lot different when I'm 75 years old. I'm not concerned with that future right now. If I know "exactly what I want to listen to" and the cost-value proposition of a streaming music subscription no longer makes a lot of sense, well, at that point I'll cancel the subscription and buy the albums I wanted to listen to. Why not?
For the sake of reference, I'm subscribing to Apple Music now, after a few years with Spotify, and a few months sampling both Google and Amazon Music. But all of Google's bundling (specifically, YouTube Red) has me considering Google Music again... but I digress.
Here's some actual advice: don't assume your tastes and socioeconomic status are the standards to which others should base such decisions. We're all consumers and the fact that we have such choice, and competition, is a good thing. As to whether or not these plans are good for the artists, is another discussion entirely.
Carry on.
Last edited:
Maybe a bit overkill on Google's part but it's better than cramming everything into one single app like Apple Music.
You seem to be changing your tune.
Firstly, you said that you quickly tire of a lot of the music you listen to, but now you say that you're 'good with my musical tastes and my exposure to new material'. You don't sound very happy with a lot of music you listen to, which suggests that a lot of your time, you are frustrated with the music you listen to. You should never need to tire of what you listen to if you exercise discretion in your listening habits.
The problem with the price is that it isn't really $120 per year. It's more like $12,000 over a lifetime, as the price will probably go up. Moreover, you have no certainty as to what music will stay on the service. The service could be discontinued at any time. If you like to build playlists and care about metadata, as soon as you cancel, they will all disappear. You will lose possibly decades of carefully crafted playlists and have to start again.
You suggest that Apple Music gives you the convenience of carrying a large library with you, but iTunes already does that with iCloud.
There is some merit to using a streaming service in parallel to a library. If Apple provided the ability to freely stream the iTunes catalogue for, say, a month after purchasing an album, then that would be a sensible streaming service. I just don't wish to spend $12,000 on Apple Music when I don't need to. So the problem with streaming is not just about price; it's about music management. I prefer to buy once and keep forever, with all the certainty and convenience that is not possible with Apple Music.
Indulge us; why is it necessarily better? I, for one, prefer everything (music-listening related, at least) in one app.
Not changing my tune at all. Everything's relative. In the past I'd tire of music I had purchased. I listen to SO MUCH new music now, that I'm bound to "tire" of some of it. Fortunately now I didn't have to pay for those albums, it's all part of my "unlimited, all I can listen to" subscription plan. The ratio of music I love in my music library to the music "I'm tired of" is very large. And sometimes, music I was tired of, I revisit at a later time, and enjoy again. The point is, I don't need to decide ahead of time and spend money on it, when I really don't know how I'll feel about it a few weeks later. I have access to it all. And I assure you, I am very happy with the music I listen to. Otherwise I wouldn't be listening to it.
And besides, it's only "$12,000 over a lifetime" if you stay subscribed over a lifetime. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. And if I do, it's not because I was trapped, or tricked. It's because I decided, month after month, that I was getting value out of it. Who's to say, that if I wasn't subscribed, that I wouldn't have spent more than $12,000 on music albums otherwise? Again, just because you find that egregiously expensive, that doesn't mean other people necessarily do too.
I've used iTunes Match since it first debuted, I know how it works with iCloud. Apple Music supplements that by giving me nearly infinite access to more music I wouldn't have purchased or acquired otherwise.
I'm fine with the uncertainty that some content (or the whole service) might go away at any time. I am fully informed about what the service means, happy with what it provides me today, and glad it's an available option for me to enjoy. I'm fine with never "fully owning" music again. This change hasn't weakened my enjoyment of music in any way. Quite the contrary. It has strengthened it tremendously.
You're dismissing way too quickly.
The power and benefit of this app is you get access to music that is no longer available on CD or available as a digital download.
This in addition to live versions that were never available for sale.
Tool and Def Leppard are two bands that come to mind that aren't available on streaming services. With YT Music, now you have access to their catalog for casual listening.
Just yesterday I was listening to some live versions of songs that were only on DVD or even VHS in some cases. This is pretty big for music lovers.
For me between Google play music and YT Music, Apple Music has become irrelevant.
For one, I think the radio features (iTunes Radio and Beats 1) could be easily their own individual radio app. The connect feature I would get rid of because it's essentially Ping 2.0 and it's not working a second time around so I'd let that go. The streaming service and curation features I would integrate into the iTunes Store. The streaming aspect would work like this: find music to stream the same way as buying (all from the same source!) and if you're an Apple Music subscriber, there would be a new '+' button that shows up right next to the 'Buy' button in which the two underlying options under the '+' would be to save and locally store album/song to Music App and the second option would be to save to Music app for streaming only but you could always change that within the Music app. The Music app itself would see a major overhaul and better resemble the music app of iOS 1-6.
I can see the "all over the place" for a subscription service. It is very difficult to make a subscription service for music into a profitable model for anything more than short term.
