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

• shadowgovt 6y ago
  This has been a long time coming; it didn't make sense for Google to have both Google Play Music and YouTube Music. Unfortunately, YT Music isn't really a drop-in replacement for the other.
• 01100011 6y ago
  Given how utterly terrible YT Music is, I have to think there is an underlying business reason they were forced to do this. Do they save on royalties and licensing by only having one channel for music? If they didn't bundle YouTube Premium with the music subscription I would have ditched it and switched to Spotify. As it is, I'm considering getting a phone with enough storage and just switching back to mp3s. Google still doesn't understand what music lovers want(like not skipping to the next track abruptly if there is a momentary connection issue).
• smdyc1 6y ago
  From Google: "We’re gradually going to shut down Google Play Music, the Music Store on Google Play and Music Manager soon, with everyone losing access in the months to come. You can read our full announcement here. This announcement follows the launch of our new migration process (back in May) which lets all Google Play Music listeners easily transfer their data and make the simple switch to YouTube Music" Interestingly, no mention of the new requirement to pay $9.99 pm to listen to your own music in the background, or the fact that ads will play on previously purchased tracks without becoming a premium subscriber.
  • bla3 6y ago
    I think they rowed back on requiring a subscription for background play.
    • uryga 6y ago
      nope, just installed the app to try it out and it pauses and prompts you to pay up :( [android/europe, ymmv elsewhere maybe?]
      • smdyc1 6y ago
        Yes, does that for me in Australia too.
      • culturedsystems 6y ago
        I'm also on Android in Europe, with no YouTube Music subscription, and it lets me play music in the background, without ads, if it's either on the device or in the "Uploads" section (which is where it's put music I'd purchased on Google Play Music). So it looks like they haven't completely removed that functionality, although the interface for accessing it is significantly more annoying.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• bla3 6y ago
  Google Play Music wasn't very popular, but it was surprisingly good. YouTube Music is ok, but it lacks that quality without a name and has many small glitches that make it much less pleasant to use.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > YouTube Music is ok No, its quite bad. In addition to being flat-out buggy (I've had it multiple times in the last week just decide to switch to a playlist it invented rather than the one it was directed to play), it doesn't support basic music playing functionality like song or playlist repeat, and (surprisingly) its Google Assistant integration is awful, forcing you to use casting from a different device for basic tasks with an Assistant-powered speaker.
    • atrus 6y ago
      What platform are you on. because I know for a fact that you can repeat individual songs, and playlists on the Android app. I'm also wondering about the casting, since I regularly cast (again from the Android app) to my minis at home.
      • dragonwriter 6y ago
        > What platform are you on. because I know for a fact that you can repeat individual songs, and playlists on the Android app. That's...bizarre. I'm on Android, and the repeat icon, which I know for a fact was not showing up in the app on my phone any time from when I was forced to use because Google Play Music stopped working on my home speakers through last night, is now showing up. (And, while there is an new update to the app, I haven't installed it yet, so its not an app update.) > I'm also wondering about the casting, since I regularly cast (again from the Android app) to my minis at home. Casting works fine from the app (well, playlist bugs excluded), the problem is having to cast from the app for lots of simple tasks where voice commands worked for GPM. As music is part of the bedtime routine for my toddler and preschooler, having everything suddenly be much less straightforward has been...unpleasant.
• ozmbie 6y ago
  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.
  • et1337 6y ago
    iTunes would like a word with you...
    • Godel_unicode 6y ago
      And ping. And FaceTime.
      • pwinnski 6y ago
        FaceTime is still very much a thing[0]. So there's iTunes (2001-2019, but arguably renamed to Apple Music, so not actually dead), and Ping (2010-2012), the latter of which had approximately three users. Like for like, Google Play Music (2011-2020) isn't quite as long-lasting, but more to the point, I'm not sure Apple has simultaneously maintained two competing services before ultimately canceling one. Then the GP commenter mentioned "chat services," which makes the position unassailable. Google seems to have launched and folder a dozen or two chat services over time[1]. 0 https://support.apple.com/guide/facetime/welcome/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/facetime/welcome/mac 1 no evidence cited
      • ewmiller 6y ago
        FaceTime is very much still a thing, I use it with my family all the time.
        • LudwigNagasena 6y ago
          Is it more convenient than WhatsApp?
• xiphias2 6y ago
  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?
  • viraptor 6y ago
    I moved to Spotify. Tried YTM which just a couple weeks ago lacked many basic features - you couldn't go from a song to the album listing or the artist page, you couldn't browse albums alphabetically, and many more - now it seems all those missing features are added. It actually looks decent now, so maybe I'll consider it in the future - but I'm already migrated now - they needed up the launch badly.
  • johneth 6y ago
    Spotify. I doubt they'll shut down / rebrand / move their music streaming service in a few months time.
  • untog 6y ago
    I can't say I've had that experience, I've never had YT music throw a video at me. I've seen them listed as results in searches though. The YT Music move annoys me more because it all just seems like such a dumb waste of time, and Google is making me think and expend effort to service their corporate nonsense. (for me, I'm sticking with YT Music over Spotify because you also get a YouTube Red subscription, and no ads on YouTube is worth it for me personally)
  • abawany 6y ago
    I moved my purchased music to YT Music in additional to having previously downloaded it but I am not super happy: the old model of buying a song or an album and then downloading it seems to no longer be an option in this craven new world - I guess they don't want my money if it does not arrive vassal-like in fixed monthly amounts.
  • city41 6y ago
    I switched from Spotify to Amazon Music Unlimited, as I found it to be much less buggy.
• michaericalribo 6y ago
  Google used to be the brand of cutting edge innovation and an optimistic technofuture...now they’re much more a brand of unreliable, half-baked ideas spread far too thin.
• necubi 6y ago
  This is a bummer. I gather that I'm one of the few users of Google Play Music, so it's not surprising it's being killed. But it was one of the few streaming services that had the ability to upload your own music, a good catalog, and widespread device support. YouTube music is OK, but worse in a bunch of respects. It separates out your uploaded music into a separate library (admittedly the matching in Play Music was always a bit wonky, but better than just giving up on the problem) which makes finding and managing music much more annoying. The UI is also really, really slow. Tt loads a single page of albums / songs / whatever at a time and takes a second to load the next one. This can turn the process of scrolling through your albums, which has been effortless since iTunes debuted, into a multi-minute process. I've been hoping ever since they announced the switch that they would improve this stuff but it doesn't look like they've made any progress.
  • electriclove 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I'm thinking of putting my music in my Google Drive and using Plex (on a seedbox server). So my music is safe and accessible but I still need to pay for a streaming service because I like the discovery options they have.
    • mayneack 6y ago
      I made the switch to plex because of the end of google music. You can get a tidal subscription through plex which has worked ok. It still separates your libraries, but you can create combined playlists.
    • interestica 6y ago
      I've heard good things about Subsonic but haven't actually used it myself. It's mostly self-hosted but has a 'premium' model for certain aspects.
  • ewmiller 6y ago
    Same boat here. I was a Google play music user for a long time, but switched to Spotify for good as soon as they announced YouTube music. The writing on the wall was there.
• Vermeulen 6y ago
  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 lecture videos that randomly play while trying to shuffle my library (that I guess Youtube somehow mistook as music). Even how it integrates with Google Assistant is terrible compared to the old product. I understand why the switch to the new service was needed, from a license/business perspective. But no idea why they can't just listen to their users and at least match feature-wise the product it's supposed to replace. I've lost faith in Google's ability to produce software and not just endlessly rebrand things.
  • electriclove 6y ago
    Me too and I've been a long time fan, user, shareholder, evangelist, etc. I feel they just can't execute anymore (software and hardware).
    • Vermeulen 6y ago
      There definitely doesn't seem to be a vision anymore - just product managers rebranding things for promotions. Pointless features like Soli are added to the Pixel then dropped next generation. With any new market they are just failing completely - unable to make a smartwatch/VR/AR platform. DayDream VR / ARCore / WearOS are all now just examples of them just throwing stuff out there with no long term commitment
  • ewmiller 6y ago
    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 for a rebrand to advance their own careers, at the expense of the user experience.
• hobs 6y ago
  I canceled after they screwed up the last service I liked and paid for from google. I wish I could upload my music to spotify and redownload it again at will but otherwise its even offering the same decent suggestions, just went back to using adblock on youtube videos without a problem.
  • sorenjan 6y ago
    You kind of can do that with Spotify. It's not as transparent and convenient as Google Music was, but you can still listen to your own music files and bring them with you on a phone. https://support.spotify.com/us/article/listen-to-local-files/ https://support.spotify.com/us/article/listen-to-local-files...
• dylan604 6y ago
  Why would you expect anything less from 1) a service from Google who has a track record of shutting things down, 2) a streaming service?
• jjordan 6y ago
  Of course they are. No one should ever trust that a Google product or project will be around for the duration.
• yk42bb 6y ago
  I use Amazon music because it lets you download DRM-free MP3s and lets me easily switch between iPhone and Android. I just wish it didn't reset to 'cloud' when I want it in 'offline' mode because I live in a patchy area.
• crazygringo 6y ago
  Is there anything new here? This support article is back from early August, and the announcement was on HN back when it was news. Just curious why this is being posted today.
  • oprypin 6y ago
    Probably because Google Play Music is actually being shut down now? That's the case for me, anyway.
    • bwat49 6y ago
      Yeah, I just tried logging into google play music and just got a page saying I must transfer to youtube music
• renewiltord 6y ago
  Youtube Music has poor integration with my Google Assistant. I suspect many of the PMs do not use Google products at all or it would be readily apparent. The big advantage is being able to play music from videos, which opens up a much larger catalogue.
• mark-r 6y ago
  I've used Google Play Music as the player for the mp3 files I've copied to my Android phone, ever since I got the phone. Never touched the online capabilities. It was perfect, did everything I wanted just the way I liked it. Then suddenly one day it was just gone. Anybody have a recommendation for an mp3 player app that works mostly the same?
  • skratlo 6y ago
    Look at BlackPlayer, it's fairly simple and basic, but that's the main selling point for me
  • josh3736 6y ago
    Pulsar https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhmsoft.pulsar https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhmsoft.pu... is a pretty good, no-BS local music player. Although I've recently moved my library in to Plex, which handles sync between devices (you can set the app to copy some/all files to your phone storage). In addition to the Plex app, they also have Plexamp for a music-focused UX. It's very nice if you're willing to put in a little setup effort. And since you run the server, you know it will never be shut down on you.
  • modernlearner 6y ago
    I had the same experience. I just went in and the app does nothing. I had to disable updates and disable the app completely and find Vanilla Music Player to replace it. https://github.com/vanilla-music/vanilla https://github.com/vanilla-music/vanilla
  • cageface 6y ago
    I like Poweramp Pro. It can be a little bit confusing at first but it's very flexible and seems to be easy on the battery.
• znpy 6y ago
  What happens to all the content that someone might have bought through the platform?
  • oprypin 6y ago
    You can download the mp3s. Or get them ported to YTM, but as far as I can tell, that's equivalent to downloading and then uploading the files there.
• tibbydudeza 6y ago
  It is the Google way ... scrap the old ... build a brand new "product" to get to L5/L6 or L8. Youtube music is shit.
• Dirlewanger 6y ago
  Anyone got any good alternatives for someone who wants to listen to their offline music collection from anywhere?
  • arvigeus 6y ago
    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
  • splonk 6y ago
    I migrated to iBroadcast. It's free, and it seems to fit my fairly minimal needs. In particular, it allowed uploading everything I dumped from GPM (~7k tracks, apparently), and allows specifying which songs should always be available offline on an Android device. Presumably it has the usual streaming features and online music acquisition features as well, but I don't use any of them. The client has an option that claims to do some normalization that I hoped would prevent large deltas in volume between tracks - in practice this seems worse than what I got from the GPM player. I mostly listen to long heterogenous playlists on shuffle, so this probably wouldn't matter to people who listen to full albums. I believe they have some monetization plan involving allowing higher bitrate playback, but I don't think I can really tell the difference. I did try migrating to Youtube Music first and gave up after one too many annoyances.
  • axaxs 6y ago
    I'm looking as well. I came across asti.ga, which looks promising as it can use a variety of cloud backends, but haven't got around to using it yet. I'm actually also considering a plex setup.
• deanCommie 6y ago
  Long-time GPM user and lover. Youtube Music fixes ONE problem I had with GPM - proper gapless playback. Everything else from the UX to the behaviour is worse. Very disappointing because I'm on Android and I like Spotify even less, and I've always loved the Google "Radio stations" more than any other. Feels bad man. Even when you give Google money they still pull the rug out from underneath you.
  • ricopags 6y ago
    On a moto g7 power the Android app can't do gapless playback, even with downloaded files. I listen to a lot of mixes, so this is untenable.
• Simulacra 6y ago
  Best thing for it really, it wasn’t going anywhere
• foofoo4u 6y ago
  Great. I lost all of my saved and favorited podcasts. They cannot be found within YT Music search.
• ElijahLynn 6y ago
  And FWIW, the migration doesn't work. The "thumbs up" playlist goes into YT Music "Liked music" which includes all sorts of other YouTube "music-ish" videos that we have liked over the years and the order is all jacked up, plus mixed with all that other stuff. So your "Liked Music" is now, not what you intended. The migration was super botched by the product team because of this.
  • patrickaljord 6y ago
    I have videos of recipes and comic shows in my Liked Music. You would think youtube Google had better AI to detect this kind of stuff. Makes think many of the videos being wrongly censored/demonetized on youtube may really be because of faulty AI detection of the content. I do enjoy the fact that I can get all those live video music available on Youtube and not on any other platform.
    • ehsankia 6y ago
      Even if could only get music, I still don't want meme songs like Gangnam Style and What does the Fox say as actual songs I listen to.
      • likeclockwork 6y ago
        Exactly! Mixing in the videos is ridiculous. Just because a video contains music doesn't mean it's part of my listening.
      • onion2k 6y ago
        I'm curious to know what you think should happen to those. They are songs after all, and some people liked them because they actually do like them as songs, so how would Google determine what reason you liked them for? Are you suggesting Google shouldn't bring likes for certain songs over to YT music because you liked them 'as memes' rather than as music?
        • conradfr 6y ago
• jeffbee 6y ago
  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.
  • xtracto 6y ago
    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.
• babayega2 6y ago
  So, the migration doesn't work. it fails to see the musics I have on file in my phone. Also, I'm in a third world country (Burundi) where a lot of the musics are blocked for being played. I purchased an album in the old Google Play Music but the new Youtube Music doesn't allow me to see my purchased music without a VPN. This is really incompetence from Google.
• tsumnia 6y ago
  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_lmCjwO3-5SaXk0_jrpG0Svf69l9Zv38xg 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 bought them out.
  • xtracto 6y ago
    I loved rdio but it was also killed. Why do the good services have to die?
  • nautilus12 6y ago
    This. I want Songza back. Why did google have to buy it only to kill it??
• axaxs 6y ago
  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 playlist, so that's good I guess. I can't even figure out if/how I can purchase music from it, which is really annoying.
  • cbhl 6y ago
    > I can't even figure out if/how I can purchase music from it You can't, unfortunately.
  • reificator 6y ago
    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.
    • jpeloquin 6y ago
      Deezer allows you to upload mp3 files, but only up to 2000 files, and you can only upload one at a time. If you only need to supplement the streaming library it may suffice. https://support.deezer.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115004221605-Uploading-MP3s-to-Deezer https://support.deezer.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115004221605-Up...
    • banaana 6y ago
      Apple Music has filled that need for me quite well
      • cageface 6y ago
        This is the main reason I prefer it to Spotify.
• im_down_w_otp 6y ago
  I just removed my Google Home devices and migrated my music service to Tidal because of this whole YouTube Music debacle. Went like this: 1. Suddenly my Google Home would only use YouTube Music when playing to the Chromecast on my TV. 2. YouTube Music, among a bunch of other terrible UX issues around how it considers music to be organized/related, has the extremely annoying quality of always playing videos of the music instead of just the music. 3. Turns out there's an option in your account settings to tell it to only play audio, no videos. 4. Also, turns out this setting has zero effect when playing through a Chromecast, and thus the damnable videos persist. 5. So, I said, "Eff it!" and signed up for a Hi-Fi Tidal account (the audio quality improvement is immediately apparent, BTW) to replace my Google Play Music... er, YouTube Music instigated brewing household clusterf*ck (the chance was screwing with my wife & two little kids' ability to listen to music with the ease and predictability they had with Google Play Music). 6. I can cast Tidal to the Chromecast from my phone, so I figured I could link it in my Google Home device, and our household music situation would be basically back to normal. Nope...NOPE! 7. You can't set Tidal as a music service for your Google Home, which turned me into the family's sporadic impromptu disc jockey throughout the day, and entirely broke the kids' ability to manage their own music enjoyment. 8. Turns out Amazon's device ecosystem doesn't have this problem, so the Chromecast got replaced with a Fire TV stick and an Alexa pod. In one felled swoop, via the most utterly existentially dubious product rollout and migration, Google managed to motivate me to eat the switching cost of replacing 100% of their hardware and 100% of their media services from my family's life. Truly a spectacular "own goal" on Google's behalf... and for what? What is even the point of YouTube Music?
  • bobthepanda 6y ago
    Curious, why Tidal?
    • im_down_w_otp 6y ago
      I tried Deezer, Spotify, Amazon, and Tidal in one day. Tidal had the best mix of predictable intuitive behavior, easy to use UI, and as a bonus it seemed to have the best sound quality. Though this may not be all that obvious in most setups, it just so happens that one of the persistent relics of a bygone era in my life, when I had more money than brains, is an underappreciated (I mean our TV is hooked to it and plays rounds and rounds of, "We are the Dinosaurs" children's classic), but almost-embarassingly high-end stereo system.
• throwaway189262 6y ago
  They're combining everything so it can't be peeled apart by antitrust. Same reason Facebook is forcing login on Oculus It's disgusting
  • CamperBob2 6y ago
    How'd that strategy work for Microsoft?
• csallen 6y ago
  I wish Google would just stick with their products and iterate on them. Instead, they completely stop making fixes and improvements to their products, silently abandon them, and secretly start working on a totally new replacement product. That's probably cleaner to do internally, but it's a horrible experience for users. I generally like to use Google software, but in the time it took them to reinvent their music player from the ground up while neglecting the previous version, I moved to Spotify.
• fomine3 6y ago
  YouTube Music is sucks, but it's still precious service that support upload locker feature. The other one is Apple Music, I'll go for it if I used only iPhone/iPad/Mac.
  • ValentineC 6y ago
    Apple Music does have Android [1] and web [2] apps. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr... [2] https://music.apple.com/us/browse https://music.apple.com/us/browse
• troughway 6y ago
  Have Google Play Music, will be switching to Apple Music. The YT droning every time I fire it up is too much, and it seems like the migration doesn’t work either. Why do you do this to yourselves, google employees on HN?
• greggman3 6y ago
  YT Music sucks and I just cancelled it yesterday (signed up for Google Play Music was was great). Google Play Music has the best recommendation tech. YT Music (and Spotify) have very poor recommendation tech. Examples: Spotify Playlist "Morning Pickup" First song is someone depressed they know they should break up but can't yet do it. Second song is about someone longing for their ex while in their current relationship. Maybe I interpreted this wrong. I assumed "Morning Pickup" was supposed to be music played to "pick me up", make me ready for the day, in other words, happy or inspiring music. Instead it could have just meant music promoted this morning. Spotify: Prince (Radio) Spotify plays rap. AFAIK that's a racist suggestion. Prince had nothing to do with rap. The only connection is that he's African American. Youtube Music: Song "Fuck you till your Groove" by Jill Jones (radio) Youtube plays "Such a Shame" by Talk Talk and "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie as suggested followup songs!?! WTFBBQ!! Youtube Music: Swingrowers (Radio) (this is a Swing or Electro-Swing group) Youtube plays "Bliss on Mushrooms" by Infected Mushroom Youtube Music: Prince (Radio) Youtube plays "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston, "Inspector Horse" by Todd Terge, A bunch of Micheal Jackson, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Santa Esmeralda, "Heart of Glass" by Blondie. Those all of next to nothing to do with Prince. Youtube Music: Depeche Mode (Radio) Youtube plays "Call on Me" by Eric Prydz
  • chewz 6y ago
    I agree 100% and thank you for providing examples. I would pay a premium for a music service that isn't providing such incompetent recommendation engine. Unfortunatly Apple Music is even worse at that. I have canceled after 30 days of heavy metal being pushed down my throat day after day - the only genre I do not listen to.
  • licebmi__at__ 6y ago
    And yet, Google play music didn't hold a candle to lastfm radio. But I feel you, I don't know how with all the ML stuff companies suppose to do, the music recommendation only seems to get worse.
• drumttocs8 6y ago
  Is there a self hosted alternative to Google Play Music? The software was an excellent free service- just not very good at making money for Google. A lot of us with music collections are running NAS- surely something can fill the void. Right now I'm using MusicBee for playing flac locally, Spotify for streaming on the go.
  • mStreamTeam 6y ago
    I am working on a project that does this. Its still got a ways to go though https://mstream.io https://mstream.io
  • ben-schaaf 6y ago
    I migrated to ampache a while back. Other than a bad UI it's really solid. It supports the subsonic API (among others) so you can use one of those apps.
  • rozim 6y ago
    This is what I'm using: - Raspberry Pi - Streaming server: MiniDLNA - Android client: Hi-Fi Audio You can of course get your ripped music from Google Takeout. I wanted a headless install, and MiniDLNA works great - you just install with apt-get and then point it to a directory tree of mp3 files. Hi-Fi Audio costs $9 -- I could not find an equivalent free & ad-free player, though they must exist.
  • blibble 6y ago
    subsonic (or one of its forks) are what I've been using for the past 12 years dsub is a brilliant piece of software, and it uses the subsonic api
  • ThatPlayer 6y ago
    I'm using Plex. They've been working on their Plexamp music player app for a bit, and it works fine for me.
• ohazi 6y ago
  I am so fucking glad I never stopped buying my music on CDs and ripping the tracks like a caveman. Why is it considered reasonable to rely on services and companies that we know we're going to outlive?
  • ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
    Yeah I’ve stuck with MP3s since the days when you could only download 1 per night. I’ve been made fun of uncountable times by friends and strangers alike, but I’ve never had my music-listening not work, no matter what device/OS.
  • 6ak74rfy 6y ago
    In the last few days, I've seen a lot of people getting angry at Spotify and (now) at Google Music. What I am surprised at is so few folks are talking about going back to physical media. Music CDs will take up physical space and might be more expensive upfront (though I doubt they'll be so in the long run). However, the upsides are huge. One, you own the content forever - even if you switch countries or want to pass it along to your children. Two, you can rip higher quality audio (such as FLAC as opposed to max 320 kbps from streaming services). Three, you get a physical artifact of the music you love (artwork and all).
    • tomjen3 6y ago
      I hate physical media and I think most others do as well. It is inconvenient, you can't make a playlist and it gets damaged. I can buy downloadable MP3s from Amazon, if I wanted to own the music. Thing is, I don't. I want a streaming service that has all the music ever produced, that I can hook into the player of my choice, and one that works on my phone when I am driving, and at my computer at work when I am working and at my home computer when I am at home. CDs wouldn't do any of that and they are a pain to rip and I don't want the music on different devices. I can't hear the difference between a 256+ MP3 and neither can most people. I won't argue that nobody can, but most people who have thousands of dollars in audio equipment probably weren't streaming to begin with.
    • Thlom 6y ago
• nautilus12 6y ago
  Ughh. This is so sad. The company google acquired to make Google Play Music (Songza) was one of my favorite music streaming services and they basically just tanked it. For seemingly no reason
• Animats 6y ago
  Hm. Is Google thinking of selling off Youtube to avoid antitrust problems? Centralizing entertainment content under the YouTube brand is a step in that direction.
• NewOrderNow 6y ago
  This has surprisingly been a long run for a Google product. It sucks hard, but I'll take 9 years over 6 months (am I getting soft?).
• mherdeg 6y ago
  I'm still a little bummed that I had (given away freely) access to a bunch of albums on Microsoft Groove Music and didn't notice they were vanishing / forgot to download them before the service vanished. Props to Takeout/Play Music for making my songs available for download as a ZIP file, I think. Play Music was often a totally baffling experience. If I wasn't paying them money and wasn't enrolled in any subscription, what happens when I type the name of a song I don't "own" into the Play Music app? Sometimes it starts playing the song; sometimes it starts playing ads, then fifteen seconds of the song, then silence; sometimes it starts playing the song, then random other songs somehow related to that; sometimes it suggests a "radio station" (?) of music similar to that song, and sometimes playing that station does nothing, or sometimes it plays a song and tells me I need to buy a service to hear more songs, or sometimes it plays that song, then an ad, then another related song, then an ad, then stops playing songs altogether and the app just doesn't play any music while showing me a UI that says it's trying to load and play a song. One time I subscribed to a free trial of the Play Music streaming service and listened to a bunch of radio songs for a long time and thumbs-up liked them and I think this tailored me to hear more songs like the ones that I had liked, and that was pretty cool, I think. I could even see all my "thumbs up" songs later and replay the ones I liked! Then I paid for that subscription for a while, and then it lapsed, and then I could still see my thumbs-up songs but I couldn't play them anymore because I wasn't a subscriber, except sometimes picking some of them would play, and then sometimes it wouldn't. Boy I spent tens of hours, maybe hundreds, listening to Play Music songs and thumbs upping them this way. I've totally forgotten that experience and how baffling it was until just now. Basically I could not figure out how to play music in Play Music. Except for music that I "owned". In my Google Play Music collection, I "owned" some albums that I don't ever remember buying or "buying" for $0 and have no record or receipt of ever putting into my playlist. I looked, I looked for the transaction history about how these albums and songs entered my account, and I just could not find them at all. One example was, um ... let me see if I can find it, oK I can't look it up in the Play Music app anymore because it's been decommissioned but I can open the YouTube Music app and look, hmmm okay, no songs in there? Oh, right, I need to sign out of YouTube account 'mherdeg' (mherdeg@gmail.com) and into YouTube account 'mherdeg@gmail.com' (mherdeg@gmail.com) because the Play Music=>YouTube Music Transfer Process only supported sign-in-with-Google YouTube accounts? which is not the kind of account I normally use in YouTube and not the one where I keep all my other playlists and listening history? Huh. Okay, switched to that other identically named account which is an empty shell. There's all that transferred music. Right, so looking at that in the category called "uploaded", somehow just to pick one example, I can listen to an album which is an album I used to "own" in Play Music and I have absolutely no recollection of asking for it, the trippy psychedelic album "Bloom and Decay" by a band called "Giant Cloud" based in New Orealns? Which is fantastic music but I have no idea why I have the rights to listen to it or where it came from into my Play Music collection. There must have been some promotional offer of a whole bunch of $0 albums a few year ago?. Truly it is like some kind of fever dream. Oh, and back when Play Music worked, trying to play the songs I "owned" was very confusing on a new phone. What I would do was set up my brand new Android phone, sign in to my Google Account, then open Play Music and notice there were no songs. I would search for a song title from one of the albums I "owned" and it would show me the confusing song/radio/subscription streaming service experience mentioned beforehand, with no indication that I had access to this music. A quick Web search eventually found that I needed to toggle a setting to sync my Play Music music into Play Music, and after I toggled this setting and made sure wifi was on and closed and reopened the app I saw my songs, and then I could play them. I did love love love Play Music for letting me download all my albums and play that music offline. In "offline mode" the experience was awesome for, you know, playing songs. Except that sometimes on a new phone it wouldn't actually download music, with a notification saying that songs were being downloaded but zero visible progress in the app after tens of minutes, and I couldn't figure out why, but usually rebooting the phone and waiting a while worked.
• inportb 6y ago
  YT Music is atrocious. On the bright side, it encouraged me to try self-hosting my library (using Navidrome). I haven't figured out how to replace GPM's recommendation engine yet, but that's not a big deal because YTM's recommendations are useless.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  Given that Google Play Music was the default app for "I just want to play that folder full of MP3s on my phone", and YouTube Music really isn't handling that use case well, what other player do people use/recommend for this? I don't care about online features. Folder, mp3, maybe a m3u/m3u8 file, play. Simple.
  • freetonik 6y ago
    Pulsar is pretty good. I have tried almost every player in the play store, but most of them had big UX problems in my opinion.
  • polytely 6y ago
    On Android I really like Black Player, it's one of the few apps I've actually bought. It's fast and has a really good UI.
• technick 6y ago
  Their is a entire subreddit woke over the death of google music. https://old.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/ https://old.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/ If you have linkedin premium, reach out to the person linked here, Gwen Shen and let her know how much google music sucks. https://old.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/comments/jbbw3m/anyone_have_linkedin_premium_this_is_who_we_need/ https://old.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/comments/jbbw3m/any...
  • josteink 6y ago
    I find it doubly ironic that you linked to this subreddit about rage over a inferior GPM-replacement of a streaming service, and you did so with a link which was specifically hard-coded to use the old Reddit UI, instead of this new inferior one.
• hatsunearu 6y ago
  Youtube music is absolute garbage. I can't use my youtube account, and I have to use my google account to access my tranferred music. And if I switch to my google account, I am logged out of youtube, and all my subscriptions are gone. I listen to very uncommon music that's not available anywhere to be streamed. Google Play Music was the only solution for streaming all my collection. I am looking for replacements... please let me know if you have any. My current bet is something like owncloud.
  • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    Thumbs up for uncommon music. I self host an instance of LMS[0] (lightweight music server) authored by HNer epoupon. [0]https://github.com/epoupon/lms https://github.com/epoupon/lms
    • hatsunearu 6y ago
      Does this work across the internet? I don't wanna VPN in every time I wanna listen to music :(
      • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
        It can, I use nginx as the reverse proxy along with Let's Encrypt certificates for HTTPS connectivity. As long as your ISP allows you to forward ports you're good to go.
  • ThatPlayer 6y ago
    Plex server with the newer Plexamp app has been my replacement, but you do need a PlexPass subscription for it.
    • hatsunearu 6y ago
      Yeah if I wanna self host, I don't wanna pay for anything haha
      • 6y ago
• AceJohnny2 6y ago
  Remember that you're able to export your Google Play Music data[1] via https://takeout.google.com https://takeout.google.com At least there's a silver lining... [1] "A list of the tracks, playlists, radio stations, uploads, and purchases in your Google Play Music library" Key to me was my playlists, including my "Thumbs Up" playlist, which as others have noted is polluted by "Liked" music videos on Youtube in the migration
• dustinls 6y ago
  Google Play Music was my phones default music player, now it doesn't have one and the alternative requires internet to play music stored locally.
• pontifier 6y ago
  They probably don't want to be on the hook for the administrative fee required under the Music Modernization Act. It's probably going to kill a bunch of small music services.
• Cloudef 6y ago
  And Google did really bad move again. Guess its time to install 3rd party music player and buy my music elsewhere.
• estebarb 6y ago
  Youtube Music is the worst music player I have ever used. Is impossible to use without internet connection: even playing downloaded songs need to wait for the album picture to be downloaded. And a lot of other bugs...
• sullyj3 6y ago
  I can't even sort my artists in alphabetical order on the webapp. It's a total embarrassment.
• cbare 6y ago
  YT music is a downgrade from Google Play Music. The web player for YT music is missing a bunch of features: - clear queue - multi-select in queue - save queue as playlist - high resolution album covers - play count It's great to consolidate overlapping products. But, why can't a company with 20,000 engineers bring YT music up to feature parity before killing off the better product?
• ssijak 6y ago
  For people who used google services for 5+ years, dobyou have ANY insentive to try new google services knowing that there is a high chance of it being half-baked and killed in afew years?
  • JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
    I just have given up and I stop recommending them to friends and family entirely. It just makes me look like a fool.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mythz 6y ago
  I thought I'd never leave the Google Play subscription, it was by far the best value covering both Play music + ad-free YouTube. But with this move I'll be switching over to an Apple One subscription once available later in the year. Google Play is simple, clean with syncing that just works everywhere I need to access it with a simple checkmark to specify which playlists I want downloaded that worked well in offline mode. Now I'm being forced into using a new music web, mobile & car play apps which prioritizes music videos? I don't think so. I don't know which bean counters are responsible for this decision but I can't imagine the cost of maintaining a skeleton crew to upkeep a frozen service would be more than the irreparable harm done to its millions of customers being forced to a use a service they don't want to, who'll be using it as an inflection point for deciding which Service they'd prefer to use instead. I'll still be keeping the ad-free YouTube for the near future, but it went from being indispensable to being the next subscription on the chopping block if my time on YouTube wanes further. I'm already spending more of my time on Twitch, that if the move to Apple Music is well received by the family I'll be leaving Google Play entirely over this. You can also bet my trust for investing in using new Google services is also shot at this point, I'd rather put my time and resources into a customer focused alternative than the disregard Google has shown its long time customers, time and again.
  • pkulak 6y ago
    My guess is that new contracts meant that the current service would either lose a bunch of money, or not be possible. Maybe because of the upload your own music stuff.
    • josteink 6y ago
      You can also upload your music to YTM, but it’s actually almost impossible to use and (intentionally?) siloed off from the rest of the user-experience (search, playback and playlists). So I’ve stopped using it because as a user it no longer works.
• ashishb 6y ago
  Any good play that works well with Google Drive as storage? I tried a few but none seems to work well with music files Google Drive. I would prefer if they maintain some cache as well. If I can't find one, I might just write one over the weekend. Let Google Drive do the storage, and I will create the bare minimal player which can play music files. That setup will last for eternity.
• 02020202 6y ago
  ha! i knew i shouldn't have moved all my music to google. lucky i didn't and kept it all for many many years. haha. go fuck yourself goolag.
• mittermayr 6y ago
  Google strikes me as the kind of company where middle-management "just wants or needs to do _something_ to demonstrate _impact_" and just goes ahead and does it their way, and meanwhile, developers (who undoubtedly are top-notch in their own regard) also want to put their skills to good use and just decide to do it "their way" too, with no synchronizing/harmonizing interface between those two groups. And every once in a while, a developer or UX researcher gets thrown in the mix (or middle) to try and build some kind of a bridge between them. It really looks like projects are started out of a crazy overnight "we need to do SOMETHING NOW" hurry, and then 6 months down the road, everyone just sort of lost interest and moved on to other things.
• ricopags 6y ago
  I'm autistic and have ADHD and music is my primary special interest. I have a large collection of rare and unique tracks, and I listen to music every day. I've been very satisfied with Google Play Music and now I'm having this utterly abysmal YT Music bs forced on me. It feels like a cruel joke. I'm grateful for this thread because this move absolutely destroyed my last bit of good will towards Google. I'm incensed over it. The YT Music app is so much worse an experience, it is acutely evident users are not what Google has in mind with this app. Just embarrassingly bad, as has been noted by many others here. For the users who stay using the undeniably worse app, Google will see more views for yt videos, upping their vanity metrics there. The addition of ads playing on music that I brought to the app in the base edition is awful, but good for the bottom line of the ads group. Meanwhile, thanks to this horseshit, I am [finally] pulling my personal domain off of their G-suite, my next phone is going to be an iPhone [or a Librem], and I'm going to offer my services free to any of the clients I've put on to G-suite [several dozen over the years, regrettably] who want to egress somewhere safer. Youtube is inescapable for video and I will likely always use it. But I'm going to stop paying for ad free and find other ways to get what I want from Google without giving them anything in return. I'll also do everything in my power to try to make the ill will this has generated into a chorus.
  • thirdsun 6y ago
    > I have a large collection of rare and unique tracks, and I listen to music every day. I've been very satisfied with Google Play Music and now I'm having this utterly abysmal YT Music bs forced on me. It feels like a cruel joke. I don't see how you're forced to use Youtube. I agree that using Youtube as your music library and management tool seems ridiculous. However why would anyone but casual listeners do so when there are plenty better alternatives? Just use one of the countless music players and library management tools much better suited to that task. Personally, I love Roon [1], but if you prefer something more affordable or free several other options come to mind: - MusicBee - Swinsian - Foobar or just plain old iTunes / Music.app All of them are much better music players / collection organizers than Youtube. [1] https://roonlabs.com/ https://roonlabs.com/
• darthrupert 6y ago
  Would be amazing if they axed gmail.
• darthrupert 6y ago
  I bought some albums when I was using google for everything with the thought that I'm buying the equivalent of a physical CD but without the irritating extra physical item. That was a stupid thought, of course. Everything's kinda temporary in the new economy. That said, Apple has been pretty damned stable on this area.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• Digit-Al 6y ago
  Does anyone know if this affects the Android Play Music app?
• IanCal 6y ago
  Great, I can't uninstall it because it came preloaded (thanks Google) and now I won't be able to use it. Edit - boy looking forward to this experience. Open the app - CTA for a trial, close it, screen changes, same CTA comes up again. Oh just played a song and had an advert and another premium sign-up thing come up.
• wazoox 6y ago
  I've migrated to NextCloud with the music application. Unfortunately Power Ampache sucks, but at least nobody can take anything away from me.
• marketingPro 6y ago
  Between music and changing their photo storage agreement and Google search being an SEO nightmare- I'm almost disconnected from Google. I am shocked at how easy it was to get away from everything but email.
• ppod 6y ago
  Here's the bit that confuses me. I have "youtube premium". I go there, and there's no link to youtube music. So I google "youtube music", and it says: "Get Music Premium to listen ad-free, offline & with your screen off. You have YouTube Premium" Are they two different things?
• joking 6y ago
  I don't get how google can fuck themselves so much closing used products without having a proper replacement. I have bough many albums on the google play music store with the promise to be able to stream whenever I wan't. I don't want to fall on the subscription hype, and used to bough an album each month instead of paying for a subscription. Of course I can download them and se them offline, but for a company like google to be unable to maintain a basic promised service and instead closing it seems like an insult. I was experimenting on having all my music on my nas and streaming directly from there instead of relying on another subscription service, so I think I will try to move everything to that (currently the only thing I lack is streaming directly to my tv, because i don't have that use case often).
• CivBase 6y ago
  Google Play Music was one of the few Google services I used because there wasn't a good alternative. I'm switching to Emby for hosting/streaming and Amazon for purchases.
• meerita 6y ago
  Yes, Google left me with 24hs no music on my phone. Glad I'm switching Apple next month. Google Play Music was the most horrible experience along with the new Youtube Music app.
• smileybarry 6y ago
  I subscribed to Google Play Music All-Access for years and wouldn't have cancelled[1] if not for regional pricing making Spotify half the price. The music selection was far greater than Spotify and the like, I could upload and match my purchases elsewhere, and their radio algorithm was actually really good. (I sorely miss it after using Spotify's) But YouTube Music is just a mess. I migrated my library to YTM and my experience is like the rest, but worse: * You can't migrate to brand (aka alias) accounts. All of my likes, uploads, favorites, recommendation profile are on my alias but to listen to my music I have to switch to my real name account. Oh, but aliases can still use YT Music, so there's virtually no reason for this restriction. * Switching accounts is for both YT and YT Music. So if I switch back to my alias on [normal] YT, the already-open YT Music tab will stop the music and ask me to switch back or refresh. * All of my music poured into "Liked Videos". Except only about ~180 songs are there and I had over a thousand saved, if not thousands. No idea where the rest are. * Some of the songs are "not available in your country" but if I search for it and find the official music video, that one is. * This applied to GPM too, but: no desktop app. You can pretend the web app is a desktop app (and it's a little smoother than GPM at least) but it's still much more taxing than even a webview app like Spotify's. [1] Fun fact: if you unsubscribe from GPM All-Access, your liked/saved songs that aren't uploaded disappear but are still in the DB, so you can't even see them. I don't know if they're part of Google Takeout, but when I moved to Spotify that meant I had to remember what songs I liked.
  • memming 6y ago
    Yup yup. I tried. I really tried to like YouTube Music, but it is just not working. I sent multiple feedbacks, but things aren't improving nor have I heard back from them. I am currently back to Google Music...! Sooo much better. I'm not sure what I will do after they shut it down for good. Probably resort back to last.fm for recommendation and hop to another streaming platform.
• itsoktocry 6y ago
  I'm with most people here: YTMusic sucks. One of the issues I'm having is that there are far more songs from artists showing up on compilation albums ("Hits of the 90s!"), as well as crappy cover tunes. I want the original song from the original album, thanks. I've also had a couple mislabeled songs, like the other day a track by the Hollies was actually a Beatles tune when I played it. Not a cover, a different song altogether. What the hell?
• josteink 6y ago
  Google Play Music was great. It let you put your music library in the cloud and play it anywhere. Simple! Pay money and extend it with Google’s streaming catalogue too. Even better! A simple product with a clear identity. In many ways a finished product with no need of big changes or a replacement. A Spotify-killer really. It certainly killed my Spotify-account. YouTube music is the exact opposite in every way. No clear identity, it’s main selling point is some vague benefit of having access to the “YouTube catalogue”. Whatever. And your uploaded music is deliberately siloed off in a separate section which doesn’t integrate at all with the normal playback, search and playlist-functionality. A complete joke. Why oh why does Google think this is an improvement for ... anyone? It’s offensive, really.
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Wow, reading all of these comments, it's really striking to me how Google has basically no consumer goodwill left. Obviously this is a biased sample, but it's kind of amazing to me how a company that was admired and beloved not too long ago is just reviled now: by governments, by their users, by their customers (i.e. advertisers). I really have to wonder what morale is like in Google-land. So much of their corporate ethos was built on what great things they do for the world, and now with this constant drumbeat of basically everyone saying "we hate you, you suck, I can't wait until you get broken up" has to be weighing on employees. And note this is not just a "people hate all big companies" thing. Sure, people have tons of gripes about Apple and Netflix for example but nowhere near the level of broken trust/expectations that has happened at Google.
  • seibelj 6y ago
    I know someone who couldn’t code a FizzBuzz who, through a couple of acquisitions, became a $500k+ middle manager at Google. I hope they saved money, because I don’t think anyone would possibly hire them post-Google lay-off. I wonder how many jabronies are farting around Google’s offices, reorganizing meetings and timelines all day and producing nothing of value.
  • izacus 6y ago
    Please don't mix loud yellers of HN with reality. If you look at any independent consumer reports the picture is very different. And Yeah, there's plenty of people liking Google and even Facebook still. Please never never mix up the sentiment of a site with a voting system (which while design will drown out certain ideas) with the general reality. This leads into very nasty surprises - both when releasing products in your company or when expecting election results. To be honest it's very bizzare that supposedly smart people on HN say dumb things like "who's still using Google products" and other silly sentiment in this very thread. (Having said that, YTM is a pretty awful product which seems to be born from some very awful corporate decisionmaking. Everything YouTube is really.)
    • hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      I mean, on one hand, sure, it's no surprise that your average person doesn't have as much hate toward Google as your average HNer. My point is Google used to be absolutely admired and beloved by the types of folks who frequent HN, and now, even if you don't look at them with distain, I think most HNers at least look at them with some sense of regret.
• strawberrypuree 6y ago
  Google Play Music was launched in 2011. If users don’t take action, their legally purchased music will be deleted and they won’t have access to it. For comparison, iTunes Music store was launched in 2003. I still have access to songs I bought with my mom’s credit card when I was 15. I’m 32. Which company respects users more?
• sova 6y ago
  How is it not profitable to stream music at a premium? The Spotify guy is worth 7 billion with little to show for the modern music artist. Also, a huge "wtf" from me for: >I do not want to pay for a streaming service and would like to buy individual songs & albums instead. How can I do this on YouTube Music? >While you cannot purchase music from YouTube Music, you can do so from another store and upload that music into YouTube Music. This way, you can have your entire music library in one place. Note that you can play uploaded songs in the background, ad-free and offline with a free YouTube Music subscription. Nice, I can upload my music to your service, and pay you to access music I paid for already? How's that expression go? "Smooth move, ex-lax."
• the_unknown 6y ago
  I absolutely hate how YouTube music doesn't understand that I am using it for music... not music videos. "Hey Google, play my music" on a Nest Hub in the kitchen so I can listen to something while cooking used to play music - now it often (but not always) insists on running whatever crazy video it found for my tunes. I simply don't watch music videos. I have no interest in them. I don't like that they joined together my music and misc YouTube clicks together. I'm now looking for an alternative. I just want what I had before. Listen to music and skip the videos so I can cook in peace.
• 8note 6y ago
  What tools make it easy to migrate the Google take out elsewhere like amazon music or Apple music?
• tandr 6y ago
  Would be interesting if ANYONE from Google actually have read anything on this thread, and what do they (or their management) think?...
• zeruch 6y ago
  Google Play long was mediocre, and had a growing list of dark pattern violations in its UX. I've since moved to Musicolet and am quite happy.
• tsjq 6y ago
  I feel it is a matter of when, them do such thing to GMail
• atiredturte 6y ago
  I listen to a lot of music offline on my Android phone, but now that Google Play Music is gone, there is no other good default application. Does anyone have any recommendations for good offline music players?