Is this the beginning of the end for Play Music?

[Morty2264]

Okay so tonight I attempted to use the Bluetooth part of my Samsung S10+ phone to manually stream my own music to my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker and I kept getting 'suggestions' from the speaker to sign up for YT Music Premium.

I went into the Google Home app and it states that it 'sees' my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker, but that it cannot connect to it. It seems like I can't stream ANY content to my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker without a subscription.

WTF!

So it seems to me that the ONLY Way I will EVER be able to stream any music or anything else to my Google Speaker, is to sign up for the YT Premium account and pay $9.99 per month.

To me that is not really a good deal since I don't listen to streaming music every day. Even in my car I tend to switch around frequently between SiriusXM and regular off-air radio.

So it seems that I now have a choice to make...do I get rid of my Insigna Google Home speaker and junk it or do I sign up for a YT Premium subscription.

This completely sux!

Not to start a 'flame war' but I realize that having several monthly subscriptions is not big deal to the young generation, but to us over 40 years old, it is a big decision. Especially since we are used to owning our own music library (Records, Tapes, CDs , ect)

And it is REALLY annoying to have to pay for a subscription just to listen to music you susposedly own, especially since it isn't something I use every day.

Honestly I am not trying to be a jerk here...I know that companies like Google need to make money to stay in business, but I am willing to accept an Ad Supported service for the features that I want to use, like Google Play Music used to provide. I just really dislike wasting my money on subscription if the service isn't something that I will be using daily or almost daily. I have a really hard time justifing paying for a subscription to a service that I might use one or twice a week or less.

And before anyone uses the Cable TV argument...yes I do have a subscription with Comcast (the only television provider in the area), but I was honestly kind of pushed into it by my wife, my family, her family, and our friends. No joke, for the first six months of living in our condo, I used an 'off-air' antenna and the signal was very crappie. We were only able to get a few local channels. So as a sort of Xmas present I signed up for the Expanded Basic package that did include all of the regular cable TV channels, but didn't include any of the premium channels like HBO or Showtime. I also didn't sign up for the Netflix package.

Honestly I think that I am one of the few people I know that has never had a Netflix subscription, and my reason is for the same reason I am resisting a music streaming service subscription, I have never felt that I would get enough use out of Netflix to make it worth having a subscription. IMHO, watching a movie once a month on Netflix does not make a Netflix subscription worth it.

Similarly I have never personally had a Costco membership, since I couldn't see myself visiting a Costco more than once in a few months, which in my opinion does not make it worth it to have a Costco membership.

Okay...please forgive my rant...I just wanted to vent my frustration with Google forcing subscriptions.

Mods...if I have said anything inflammatory, please feel free to either edit this post or delete it all together.

KCT1975 Out...

I can definitely see what you are saying. If you aren't going to use the service every day, then paying a subscription is oftentimes just not an option. I'm 31 and definitely had my own CD collection and then had an iPod (back in the day when those were a thing), so I understand where you are coming from there, too.

I'm still resisting joining YT Music - I get notifications to do so often and just haven't. I don't want to pay for a subscription to music I've already paid for... But it looks like that's where we are, unless we use another music service. The difference for me is that I listen to music almost daily so I suppose it'd be a bit more of a worthwhile purchase.

 

[kbz1960]

Okay so tonight I attempted to use the Bluetooth part of my Samsung S10+ phone to manually stream my own music to my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker and I kept getting 'suggestions' from the speaker to sign up for YT Music Premium.

I went into the Google Home app and it states that it 'sees' my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker, but that it cannot connect to it. It seems like I can't stream ANY content to my Insigna Branded Google Home speaker without a subscription.

WTF!

So it seems to me that the ONLY Way I will EVER be able to stream any music or anything else to my Google Speaker, is to sign up for the YT Premium account and pay $9.99 per month.

To me that is not really a good deal since I don't listen to streaming music every day. Even in my car I tend to switch around frequently between SiriusXM and regular off-air radio.

So it seems that I now have a choice to make...do I get rid of my Insigna Google Home speaker and junk it or do I sign up for a YT Premium subscription.

This completely sux!

Not to start a 'flame war' but I realize that having several monthly subscriptions is not big deal to the young generation, but to us over 40 years old, it is a big decision. Especially since we are used to owning our own music library (Records, Tapes, CDs , ect)

And it is REALLY annoying to have to pay for a subscription just to listen to music you susposedly own, especially since it isn't something I use every day.

Honestly I am not trying to be a jerk here...I know that companies like Google need to make money to stay in business, but I am willing to accept an Ad Supported service for the features that I want to use, like Google Play Music used to provide. I just really dislike wasting my money on subscription if the service isn't something that I will be using daily or almost daily. I have a really hard time justifing paying for a subscription to a service that I might use one or twice a week or less.

And before anyone uses the Cable TV argument...yes I do have a subscription with Comcast (the only television provider in the area), but I was honestly kind of pushed into it by my wife, my family, her family, and our friends. No joke, for the first six months of living in our condo, I used an 'off-air' antenna and the signal was very crappie. We were only able to get a few local channels. So as a sort of Xmas present I signed up for the Expanded Basic package that did include all of the regular cable TV channels, but didn't include any of the premium channels like HBO or Showtime. I also didn't sign up for the Netflix package.

Honestly I think that I am one of the few people I know that has never had a Netflix subscription, and my reason is for the same reason I am resisting a music streaming service subscription, I have never felt that I would get enough use out of Netflix to make it worth having a subscription. IMHO, watching a movie once a month on Netflix does not make a Netflix subscription worth it.

Similarly I have never personally had a Costco membership, since I couldn't see myself visiting a Costco more than once in a few months, which in my opinion does not make it worth it to have a Costco membership.

Okay...please forgive my rant...I just wanted to vent my frustration with Google forcing subscriptions.

Mods...if I have said anything inflammatory, please feel free to either edit this post or delete it all together.

KCT1975 Out...

Why not just get a different speaker?

 

[cass_m]

So...I just found out something VERY Annoying about YouTube Music...

I have an Insignia Branded Google Home Speaker in my living room that I regularly stream music to either directly from Google Play Music or by Cast from my phone ...

So today I pulled up a song on YouTube Music just to give YouTube Music a try, and then I tapped the Cast to Speaker icon...and I got the message that casting the music to a Google Home speaker is only available with YouTube Premium!

What 'The Ham Sandwich'!

It is bad enough that Google is trying to force users to pay for YouTube Premium just to be able to stream their own music in the background with the screen off...but are they telling me now that the ONLY way I will be able to stream music to my Google Home speaker is if I have a YouTube Premium subscription! That sux!

Personally I don't have any Streaming Music Subscriptions, because I am an occasional music listener. I will admit that I do pay for a SirisXM subscription, because I do regularly listen to music in the car . But I personally do not see the value of a Streaming Music Service subscription if it isn't something that I use daily.

Also while I do tend to watch a lot of YouTube channels, and the ads are annoying (especially when several ads pop up during the video and repeatly Interupert the video), I can live with the ads.

But I have to admit that now I am P! $$ED Off!

It seems that once Google Play Music goes away...the Only way that I will be able to use my Insigina branded Google Home Speaker is if I subscribe to either YouTube Premium or another Music Streaming Service!

If any of you know of an app or a music streaming solution that does not require a subscription to stream music to a Google Home Speaker ...Please do let me know.

I'm listening to my SiriusXM subscription on my Google home. I have it set so I can say "play radio" and it goes to my fav station.

 

[eric002]

If this is true, it is sad news.

Yep yep. It's true all right. I tried to hold out as long as I could, but I'm paying 10 bucks a month for YouTube music premium. I don't have any downloaded music on my phone. Spotify is playlist and the prediction engine algorithms to me suck and I'm a googler so I'm just doing YouTube music. I do wish you were cheaper per month but it is what it is I canceled my Sirius XM satellite subscription

 

[davidnc]

I had some music on GPM but I'm not switching to YTM

I don't like what I read about YouTube Music (YTM). That being said I won't use it , Ha .

I use to have a Sirius XM satellite subscription that I had a big discounted on , which ended this spring.

There was no way I was going to continue with it at the price the were going to charge. It was a pain to get that though to them. They could not auto charge me either because the card they had on file had changed . Once they found out they could not talk me into paying that huge amount they offered me what I paid on the discount. No thanks its to late for that

Spotify Premium works for me and its is bundled with another service so that's a bonus. The music I had on GPM was also on Spotify

 

[eric002]

I had some music on GPM but I'm not switching to YTM

I don't like what I read about YouTube Music (YTM). That being said I won't use it , Ha .

I use to have a Sirius XM satellite subscription that I had a big discounted on , which ended this spring.

There was no way I was going to continue with it at the price the were going to charge. It was a pain to get that though to them. They could not auto charge me either because the card they had on file had changed . Once they found out they could not talk me into paying that huge amount they offered me what I paid on the discount. No thanks its to late for that

Spotify Premium works for me and its is bundled with another service so that's a bonus. The music I had on GPM was also on Spotify

You know, I agree with a lot of what you said. I had SiriusXM in my Honda before YouTube music. here's a problem with Sirius XM application on my phone though, the audio quality sucks with the bitrate and there are tons and tons of Sirius XM reviews on the web that stay the same thing. The head unit in your car has better audio output of Sirius XM than your phone will ever have. I wasn't going to pay even with a massive discount from Sirius XM to have it in both places where I listen to music on my phone a lot and the music quality of Sirius XM just sucks. With that being said, yeah $9.99 for YouTube music premium with the ability to listen to background music and multitasking etc etc is a lot of money a month there's no question about it and Google play Music was free. You can play music and still functional. However, this year it is supposed to die. I tried Spotify, but I couldn't bring myself to like it for myself. Basically, if I wanted a particular artist and then clicked on the radio version of that it would show me all the songs that was going to play and they weren't very different types of songs they were that same exact artist maybe a little different. Basically the music predictions and Spotify at least in my opinion, sucked. And I didn't like the UI of Spotify It was very janky and not smooth. I know it's a top most popular music streaming service right now, but just didn't work for me. kind of wish it did because then I would say 10 bucks a month but it is what it is. Listen to him I also tried Pandora. Pandora's app interface is great, but just like Sirius XM radio app on your phone, Pandora's audio quality sucks. There's no digital equalizer and I like a lot of hard rock and metal music. There's no EQ equalizer or bass settings... That's a problem.

 

[Mike Dee]

What really bites for those of you that remeber is that Google bought Songza which was a great app and blended it with GPM. So in essence they have killed 2 apps and have left us YTM. Google seems to like killing apps. Let's hope they don't kill Waze.

 

[eric002]

What really bites for those of you that remeber is that Google bought Songza which was a great app and blended it with GPM. So in essence they have killed 2 apps and have left us YTM. Google seems to like killing apps. Let's hope they don't kill Waze.

I'm in town I'll go so far as to even say that online on the internet somewhere there seems to be a petition to say Google play Music... However, I doubt that Google's even going to listen to people sign the petition. I mean the interface of YouTube music is nice. It's fluid, it's smooth, it's intuitive. The only problem I really have with it is paying 10 bucks a month for it. I mean are the features of YouTube music as good as Google play Music no, but I'm sure Google will improve it in the future. I can't speak for the users that have locally downloaded music and are really music lovers unlike myself. I mean it does suck that Google is killing off Google play Music finally though.

 

[Mike Dee]

I'm in town I'll go so far as to even say that online on the internet somewhere there seems to be a petition to say Google play Music... However, I doubt that Google's even going to listen to people sign the petition. I mean the interface of YouTube music is nice. It's fluid, it's smooth, it's intuitive. The only problem I really have with it is paying 10 bucks a month for it. I mean are the features of YouTube music as good as Google play Music no, but I'm sure Google will improve it in the future. I can't speak for the users that have locally downloaded music and are really music lovers unlike myself. I mean it does suck that Google is killing off Google play Music finally though.

I don't use it as this point. I use Spotify Premium and it includes Hulu TV. I also have a lot high resolution music stored on my phone and use Poweramp to listen to it.

 

[eric002]

I don't use it as this point. I use Spotify Premium and it includes Hulu TV. I also have a lot high resolution music stored on my phone and use Poweramp to listen to it.

about time okay. So you are a music lover. Lol. Yeah, for you Spotify works better I'm sure and playing your locally saved music on your phone! For me I literally stream everything in my life. Lol. Good for you.

 

[anon(50597)]

Don't worry, YTM will be killed in 2 years for something else.

 

[eric002]

Don't worry, YTM will be killed in 2 years for something else.

Oh, Hardy har har. Lol. I mean honestly at least to me, YouTube music's UI is smooth and intuitive I enjoy using it. I just wish they made a cheaper per month. It's not like I have a family plant subscription for YouTube music nor did I with Google play Music. I just find that paying $9.99 a month from music streaming it's a little high but I can deal with it because I canceled my XM subscription for my car. So I play my YouTube music on my phone and then my car of course.

 

[anon(50597)]

Oh, Hardy har har. Lol. I mean honestly at least to me, YouTube music's UI is smooth and intuitive I enjoy using it. I just wish they made a cheaper per month. It's not like I have a family plant subscription for YouTube music nor did I with Google play Music. I just find that paying $9.99 a month from music streaming it's a little high but I can deal with it because I canceled my XM subscription for my car. So I play my YouTube music on my phone and then my car of course.

Apple takes forever to change things.
Google changes things every 5 minutes.
We need someone in the middle.

 

[eric002]

Apple takes forever to change things.
Google changes things every 5 minutes.
We need someone in the middle.

Yes, I couldn't agree more so with you! We need some middle points here lol

 

[Mike Dee]

about time okay. So you are a music lover. Lol. Yeah, for you Spotify works better I'm sure and playing your locally saved music on your phone! For me I literally stream everything in my life. Lol. Good for you.

About time? Lol

 

[eric002]

About time? Lol

Sorry meant completely agree with you. Lol.

 

[Mike Dee]

Sorry meant completely agree with you. Lol.

About time that you agree with me? Lol

 

[eric002]

About time that you agree with me? Lol

Hahaha yeah right! Lol I've tried every music service that's popular. I mean other than my being a googler, I like the way YouTube music works and have a predicts the music that I like. Spotify I found I was just listening to same exact songs by the same exact artist over and over again even when I was in the radio station version of the app.

 

[kct1975]

So just to 'jump back into the fray' of the debate about streaming music versus having the music downloaded...

Me, personally, I have quite a large digital music library and I enjoy being able to listen to music from my personal music library on any computer in addition to my smartphone and smartspeaker. I also don't particularly want to have my personal music library taking up valuable space on my smartphone that could be used for applications. I also am not really that big on listing to suggested music from 'Stations' or 'Channels'. Lastly, as I have mentioned previously, I only occasionally listen to music

So basically Spotify and Pandora don't fit my needs and neither does Amazon Music...since I can't upload my music library.

So as I have mentioned, my options, as I see it are either subscribe to YT Music at $9.99, or try possiblly uploading my music library to an online storage service (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and then seeing if I can find a way to stream my own music. The biggest problem with that is I would have no easy way to create a playlist or search my music.

The thing that is really irritating about having to pay for a subscription to YT Music, is I am actually one of the few people who can live with comericals. Currently I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and I have lived with the advertisements embedded in the video for years. I would actually be willing to put up with advertisements between my music for the privlage of not having to pay for a subscription.

 

[anon(50597)]

I've downloaded my music to my phone because all I want is my personal music library. I don't want to stream anything.

We've gone from putting your own album, which you bought, on a turntable to listen to as many times as you want to being almost forced to rent (stream) music which you end up paying much more for overall. I understand I'm in the minority, but it is frustrating. They keep making it more and more difficult.