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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 br

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.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  The story I’ve heard is that way more people are using YouTube for music listening than ever used Play Music, and that didn’t seem to be changing any time soon, so it doesn’t make sense to put any more resources toward Play Music.
  - strawberrypuree 6y ago
    So the lesson is: if you use Google products, you better hope you use them the way most people do, otherwise the company will take it away from you. This is what it means to be a company with no vision.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      I think the world would be a worse place if every product ever made was supported forever. There would be nobody left to work on making things better.
      - strawberrypuree 6y ago
        There are several places on the spectrum between total shutdown and perpetual support. Google hasn't made it vary far to the right on this spectrum.
- xnx 6y ago
  I was a longtime Google Play Music All Access subscriber. One HUGE benefit that YouTube Music has is the available catalog. I like a lot of obscure music and remixes that no one else but YouTube has. I also agree that it's ridiculous that YouTube Music doesn't have all the features of Google Play Music. Still this was handled much better than most shutdowns where there is no migration path. I'm glad that Google is combining some redundant services. 5 more years and they might get their chat situation in order.
- CamelCaseName 6y ago
  Then let me be the first. YouTube Music has the one feature I care about: A catalogue that includes everything from well-known music from top artists, to the random indie music that got a grand total of 10,000 views on YouTube when it was published 8 years ago. Sure I could download these songs (assuming RIAA takes its teeth out of youtube-dl) and upload them to most music players, but YouTube Music facilitates discovery and does all the work for me.
laverya 6y ago
> 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 If there was a way to say "no, this isn't music", this would be easily solved. But Google's fascination with "AI-only" solutions won't let that happen. (You'd think someone would be happy to have an extra source of training data!)
- xnx 6y ago
  Another unfortunate side effect is my "ocean waves" alarm clock playlist is always queued up in Youtube Music as a song after I wake up.
titzer 6y ago
> browsing playlists is insanely slow, This is so unforgivable. A playlist can be what? A hundred songs? A thousand? Ten thousand? This is a few kilobytes of data at most. Something has gone seriously wrong if the Google infrastructure and a mobile device with > 1gb of RAM cannot manipulate this small amount of data properly.
- recursive 6y ago
  I think you're a few orders of magnitude off. If each song has 100 bytes of metadata, which is a reasonable guess I think, then ten thousand songs costs a megabyte. I mean, your point still stands, but it's more effectively made without the exaggeration I think.

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.

shajznnckfke 6y ago
The story I’ve heard is that way more people are using YouTube for music listening than ever used Play Music, and that didn’t seem to be changing any time soon, so it doesn’t make sense to put any more resources toward Play Music.
- strawberrypuree 6y ago
  So the lesson is: if you use Google products, you better hope you use them the way most people do, otherwise the company will take it away from you. This is what it means to be a company with no vision.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    I think the world would be a worse place if every product ever made was supported forever. There would be nobody left to work on making things better.
    - strawberrypuree 6y ago
      There are several places on the spectrum between total shutdown and perpetual support. Google hasn't made it vary far to the right on this spectrum.
xnx 6y ago
I was a longtime Google Play Music All Access subscriber. One HUGE benefit that YouTube Music has is the available catalog. I like a lot of obscure music and remixes that no one else but YouTube has. I also agree that it's ridiculous that YouTube Music doesn't have all the features of Google Play Music. Still this was handled much better than most shutdowns where there is no migration path. I'm glad that Google is combining some redundant services. 5 more years and they might get their chat situation in order.
CamelCaseName 6y ago
Then let me be the first. YouTube Music has the one feature I care about: A catalogue that includes everything from well-known music from top artists, to the random indie music that got a grand total of 10,000 views on YouTube when it was published 8 years ago. Sure I could download these songs (assuming RIAA takes its teeth out of youtube-dl) and upload them to most music players, but YouTube Music facilitates discovery and does all the work for me.

laverya 6y ago

> 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 If there was a way to say "no, this isn't music", this would be easily solved. But Google's fascination with "AI-only" solutions won't let that happen. (You'd think someone would be happy to have an extra source of training data!)

xnx 6y ago
Another unfortunate side effect is my "ocean waves" alarm clock playlist is always queued up in Youtube Music as a song after I wake up.

titzer 6y ago

> browsing playlists is insanely slow, This is so unforgivable. A playlist can be what? A hundred songs? A thousand? Ten thousand? This is a few kilobytes of data at most. Something has gone seriously wrong if the Google infrastructure and a mobile device with > 1gb of RAM cannot manipulate this small amount of data properly.

recursive 6y ago
I think you're a few orders of magnitude off. If each song has 100 bytes of metadata, which is a reasonable guess I think, then ten thousand songs costs a megabyte. I mean, your point still stands, but it's more effectively made without the exaggeration I think.