Google's rocky transition to YouTube Music leaves some speakers without music support.
Read the whole story
Read the whole story
Google Music shuts down smart speaker support and music store
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Good time to abandon Google owned music forever. You won't regret it, I am fairly confident.
Upvote
169
(174
/
-5)
"The "Google Play Store" branding wouldn't make much sense at this point, but would Google want to make obsolete the millions of printed posters, cards, and Web buttons that are out there?"
Yes, it's Google. There's nothing they love more than this stuff.
Yes, it's Google. There's nothing they love more than this stuff.
Upvote
146
(146
/
0)
I'm still cursing Google for this transition. I'm not liking Spotify nearly as much as GPM, but I'll try every other service and then go back to hosting my own music before I switch to YouTube Music.
Upvote
155
(155
/
0)
2 years from now YT banning music only content. It has to be a video. (For the ads, you see. But they won't say that.)
Upvote
118
(122
/
-4)
Upvote
220
(221
/
-1)
I still have a library of music files on my computer and never worry about losing them after a service is cancelled on a whim. Take control of your data.
Upvote
118
(124
/
-6)
You can still install them before the service goes dark and play locally... oh. Oh no.
Upvote
96
(97
/
-1)
Fun Story:
Not too long ago I decided, due to the impending sunset, that it was time to download all of my purchased music (much of it was free promo stuff) from GPM. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I could only download them 100 at a time. I didn't bother...
Not too long ago I decided, due to the impending sunset, that it was time to download all of my purchased music (much of it was free promo stuff) from GPM. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I could only download them 100 at a time. I didn't bother...
Upvote
34
(43
/
-9)
So what's a good music player for locally-stored music on Android these days? I've been using Google Play Music just because I can kick it right up from Android Auto and shuffle through the MP3s on my phone but I assume that's going to die with the app.
Upvote
45
(45
/
0)
I've tried it out and YT music sucks. Google Music was designed to let you find and play your music. YT music is designed to get you to buy music, and ideally the music they want you to buy.
Upvote
85
(85
/
0)
Yeah I gave it a spin for a little while and it was classic "Google how do you imagine me using this to just play music? I don't want to shop....I'm already paying you."
The hand off between Play Music and YouTube may as well been a transition from a Play Music account to a membership of the Sandpaper of The Month Club.... they're just that different. Like same topic sure, but somehow very not the same.
Upvote
35
(36
/
-1)
So aside from breaking a billion existing Google Play Music compatible devices and services... what exactly is supposed to be the benefit of this change? Hell, what is even the benefit to Google themselves?
Upvote
89
(92
/
-3)
If I didn't get it bundled with my Youtube Premium service I certainly wouldn't have subscribed separately since I already had a Pandora and Amazon music subscription. But I won't go back to having ads in YouTube and I don't want to deprive so many cool people who make content that I enjoy of their income so I'll still have YouTube Music as long as it's bundled.
Upvote
25
(25
/
0)
Spotify's been infinitely better than the current version of GPM in terms of its ability to surface me things that I'm interested in listening to and don't know about. It's nowhere near as good as 2013-2016-ish GPM though.
Basically, Google killed my daily use of GPM back when they moved to this new "activity" focused presentation and it's just been a long decline since then. The only reason I even continued to use it is because of YouTube without ads and not wanting Yet Another Subscription but the move to YT Music has pretty much cleared me out of their ecosystem for music forever. Which is sad because it's the last bastion of being able to co-mingle my own music from back in the day with new stuff.
Upvote
26
(27
/
-1)
April King
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I keep hoping for YouTube Music to die, so that I can finally buy ad-free YouTube for $5/mo.
C'mon, YouTube Music. You too can have a quick visit to the Google Graveyard, I believe in you!
C'mon, YouTube Music. You too can have a quick visit to the Google Graveyard, I believe in you!
Upvote
70
(71
/
-1)
In the UK Sky bricked their original white Sports TV box destroying 100s of thousands of boxes still in use for the likes of iPlayer and ITV Hub, not to mention causing Sky Now TV sports cancellations as a protest to this vandalism.
I have yet to need to choose a player for my music but it certainly will not be Youtube, a service already with a horrific amount of ads.
It is getting scary, this plague of shutdowns. Any device or service is in danger of being bricked in an attempt to extract extra profit.
We do not need to change our phones much at all so bricking phones is also part a corporate desired future.
I have yet to need to choose a player for my music but it certainly will not be Youtube, a service already with a horrific amount of ads.
It is getting scary, this plague of shutdowns. Any device or service is in danger of being bricked in an attempt to extract extra profit.
We do not need to change our phones much at all so bricking phones is also part a corporate desired future.
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
I used to do this thing where I downloaded AND burned to disc any digital music I bought, including the few albums I obtained from Google Play ... as my backup situation grew more ... trustworthy ... I stopped making discs ...
At least I could do that with music, as compared to other types of digital content ...
At least I could do that with music, as compared to other types of digital content ...
Upvote
10
(10
/
0)
The benefit to Google is they get to stop being bored with an app for the next 2.3 months. That's about the time when they'll begin writing Google Music which we'll find out about in a couple of years when they announce that YouTube Music is shutting down in favor of the NEW Google Music and it'll be a seamless transition. They promise.
Upvote
73
(74
/
-1)
I mean, if you don't do it now, they'll do it for you at some point in the near future, right?
Upvote
23
(25
/
-2)
I live and die by play lists that aren't my own, and at first GPM actually had a lot of good playlists that I really liked and found new stuff in..... then that just stopped happening.
Now I like Spotify's playlists.... kinda.
Upvote
10
(11
/
-1)
I use Apple Music. Not because I think it's really better than Spotify, but because they had a better family music deal originally and I was already using iTunes for my owned music, so I figured I'd try it. Cancelled Spotify.
Later Spotify lowered their family price, but once the whole family was in an ecosystem it was just easier to stay, it works fine. I don't love it, but it's easy to play my music, owned or streamed, from one place, and that's enough.
The thing is, as much as iTunes has been saddled with bloat or whatever over the years, it's always been there. I never lost any of my music. Whatever changes it's had I can still open it up and play stuff.
Google doesn't seem to understand how disruptive their "make a service, neglect it, cancel it" cycle is to the people who get used to it.
I can deal with a name change, or interface tweaks or whatever. But when one day shit just stops working? Gah, it's a first world problem, but damn it's annoying. That's the kind of thing that really sours me on brands.
(As an aside, I have YouTube Premium for the family, so everyone can have ad free viewing. I've never cared about the music side, and I never will. Because I trust the video thing isn't going anywhere, and I have zero faith that music part is stable. So I ignore it even though I guess I'm paying for it.)
Later Spotify lowered their family price, but once the whole family was in an ecosystem it was just easier to stay, it works fine. I don't love it, but it's easy to play my music, owned or streamed, from one place, and that's enough.
The thing is, as much as iTunes has been saddled with bloat or whatever over the years, it's always been there. I never lost any of my music. Whatever changes it's had I can still open it up and play stuff.
Google doesn't seem to understand how disruptive their "make a service, neglect it, cancel it" cycle is to the people who get used to it.
I can deal with a name change, or interface tweaks or whatever. But when one day shit just stops working? Gah, it's a first world problem, but damn it's annoying. That's the kind of thing that really sours me on brands.
(As an aside, I have YouTube Premium for the family, so everyone can have ad free viewing. I've never cared about the music side, and I never will. Because I trust the video thing isn't going anywhere, and I have zero faith that music part is stable. So I ignore it even though I guess I'm paying for it.)
Upvote
137
(138
/
-1)
chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
Yet again proving that any device relying on specific cloud services for functionality is just waiting to be obsoleted.
What really gets me is all the very literal waste. Just think of all the perfectly good hardware that's been thrown in the trash at this point because some cloud service shut down.
What really gets me is all the very literal waste. Just think of all the perfectly good hardware that's been thrown in the trash at this point because some cloud service shut down.
Upvote
48
(49
/
-1)
Things have changed especially using Google Takeout (see Ron's previous articles). In fact when I first tried Takeout that only supported the name of the files but now (Ron his last article on it) you could also download the music as well (just make sure to maximize the file size). Maybe they will do the same for Movies as well.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
I started using Pulsar (based on reviews and how long its been around) for local and i'm streaming my own via Plex for a one time 5$ fee for when i want my whole library available. For music discovery i'm using Spotify free and for purchases a combo of 7Digital, Bandcamp and artists web pages.
Upvote
10
(11
/
-1)
My NAS with 1000s of MP3s on still works perfectly well thanks, guess people didn't learn from Microsoft's play for sure.
Upvote
36
(39
/
-3)
I only ever cared about the uploading your own music part of GPM. Does anyone know a way to somehow export all the playlists into a csv or something to have a list of all the music in a playlist? My export to YTM did nothing and I care more about the ability to sync playlists across devices than anything else.
Upvote
10
(10
/
0)
Money, YTM pays out ~10times less that Play Music
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-ma ... -a-dollar/
Upvote
29
(29
/
0)
I still can't sort/edit playlists in YTM. Apparently the kids don't do that anymore.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
Dear Google,
We don't want music in our YouTube video playlists or YouTube videos in our music playlists. Whoever thought this "functionality" would help users should be fired.
Use the YT name if you must but stop trying to blend two very different mediums.
We don't want music in our YouTube video playlists or YouTube videos in our music playlists. Whoever thought this "functionality" would help users should be fired.
Use the YT name if you must but stop trying to blend two very different mediums.
Upvote
66
(66
/
0)
My suggestion? Obtain a fixed IP address from your ISP if at all possible or pay for something like noIP to provide dynamic IP reassignment. That way, your home router is contactable from your phone. Behind that router, and with a bit of port mapping involved, you run something like a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, and on that install the Plex Media Server.
On Android, then use the standard Plex player for videos and, just for the audio side of things, Plexamp.
This setup means I can stream a movie or play any of my self-owned music at whatever quality I choose from wherever I happen to be in the world (should covid ever subside and allow extensive foreign travel again, of course!). I have no media at all on my phone's SD card, in other words.
The obvious drawback to this approach: you need to be comfortable with access to your home network from the world outside (and know how to lock things down); and you need probably need a generous amount of data with your phone plan (I get 60GB a month, so that's not a worry for me).
For me, it's a cheap and reliable option. I realise it might not be to everyone's taste.
Upvote
10
(16
/
-6)
This is yet another reason why I’m deeply hesitant to embrace anything that I rely upon “as a service.” I haven’t even transitioned from iTunes to Apple Music and their whole, No, no - trust us - it’s the exact same except you having to worry about storing all your music and podcasts.
Yeah....
Yeah....
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
I haven't used the service (and I don't seem to be able to get much of an idea how YouTube Music works without going through the whole sign-up process), but does this mean that YouTube Music allows you buy and/or subscribe to content, and then rather than putting that content front and center, continuously tries to show you things you'd have to pay for?
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
BevansDesign
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I jumped ship about a year ago when it became apparent that they were going to half-ass every step of the process. Spotify is just as good as GPM was (which isn't saying a whole lot).
I really do hope they get rid of the stupid "Play" name in everything. "Google App Store" is fine.
Having everything available in one package makes sense, but that package is the device, not the apps. I can either switch between functions on the device like I do for everything else (by choosing which app I want to use), or within an all-in-one app with its own unique UI for switching between functions. Keep it simple; keep it separated.
I really do hope they get rid of the stupid "Play" name in everything. "Google App Store" is fine.
Having everything available in one package makes sense, but that package is the device, not the apps. I can either switch between functions on the device like I do for everything else (by choosing which app I want to use), or within an all-in-one app with its own unique UI for switching between functions. Keep it simple; keep it separated.
Upvote
9
(9
/
0)
I used to enjoy using Power Amp though that was some 5 years ago now. No idea of it still exists. At the time it was very fully featured and was very easy to use.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
This vastly understates the requirements for properly securing a public Internet facing server. It's not simply locking it down, it's keeping up to date with all relevant patches and other aspects of security. Even then, if someone comes knocking with a single zero day, you're hosed.
While that might be workable for a very few folks, it's absolutely not a suitable replacement for local files. It's definitely inadvisable in terms of general advice.
Upvote
33
(34
/
-1)