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You could cut that down to one, if you were willing to switch to YT Music. I personally prefer it, and it's at feature parity (afaik). Obviously, however, you

You could cut that down to one, if you were willing to switch to YT Music. I personally prefer it, and it's at feature parity (afaik). Obviously, however, you do you.

codybontecou 3y ago
Almost feature parity. You cannot download songs to your Apple Watch using YouTube music.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  Blame Apple for that. It works fine with Android smartwatches. But yes, if that's a feature you need, obviously you shouldn't use the service.
kevincox 3y ago
YT Music basically made me quit my Premium subscription because it was so bad. They may have fixed some of these by now but I used it during the pre-release period and it didn't get much better. 1. The recommendation algorithm didn't work very well for me. It would keep repeating the same songs. Even songs that I didn't like (and only 5k dislikes are excluded, it used to be 2.5k or something and they "fixed" it when I first filed feedback that I was being recommended disliked songs). 2. You can upload your own music but it is in a separate "library" than their music. So you can't just shuffle both and your own music will never be recommended in radios. 3. The app was shit with spotty connections. It didn't even seem to preload the entire current song. So if you had occasional brief lack of connection it would drop out. 4. Various UX complaints about the web client. Mostly that it was slow and awkward. Google Play music was actually fantastic. Such a shame that it got killed. I agree that moving it under YouTube was the logical move but they should have just rebranded rather than writing a shitter version.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  1 - not sure what your issues were with the recommendation algorithm. It seems to be a mix of the GPlay Music algo with YouTube's built-in. The playlists I get are fine and don't usually repeat until ~35 songs (only if you don't have auto-load enabled for the playlist, if you do it can go much longer). Spotify most definitely has better prebuilt and community radios/playlists, however. 2 - this is probably the worst feature dropped from the GPlay -> YT transition. It's clear they're trying to discourage personal library use. 3 - I've not seen this issue and generally I get a two-three song buffer. I imagine this has to do with your settings and device configuration. I don't doubt your issue, simply can't corroborate it. 4 - the overall UX and client (web and native ones) have both improved drastically in the time I've used it. I stuck to GPlay for as long as possible because of it's terribleness, but it seems pretty useable these days. That's all going to be preference though.
LoganDark 3y ago
You could cut it down to zero if you just download the music you like. Then you won't have to worry about it being in The Cloud and able to disappear / revoke your access at any moment.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  the cost of hunting down media + maintaining a library + making it portable across all my devices is totally worth $10/mo.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    TBH I only download things from YouTube into a folder and I just use Syncthing to make it portable when it matters. But I'm not particularly "on the go" so I don't bother with mobile devices, or generally any wireless things. I don't organize playlists or anything. Every piece of music I have ever downloaded is in one playlist. I access a song by name when I want to hear it.

You could cut that down to one, if you were willing to switch to YT Music. I personally prefer it, and it's at feature parity (afaik). Obviously, however, you do you.

codybontecou 3y ago

Almost feature parity. You cannot download songs to your Apple Watch using YouTube music.

deaddodo 3y ago
Blame Apple for that. It works fine with Android smartwatches. But yes, if that's a feature you need, obviously you shouldn't use the service.

kevincox 3y ago

YT Music basically made me quit my Premium subscription because it was so bad. They may have fixed some of these by now but I used it during the pre-release period and it didn't get much better. 1. The recommendation algorithm didn't work very well for me. It would keep repeating the same songs. Even songs that I didn't like (and only 5k dislikes are excluded, it used to be 2.5k or something and they "fixed" it when I first filed feedback that I was being recommended disliked songs). 2. You can upload your own music but it is in a separate "library" than their music. So you can't just shuffle both and your own music will never be recommended in radios. 3. The app was shit with spotty connections. It didn't even seem to preload the entire current song. So if you had occasional brief lack of connection it would drop out. 4. Various UX complaints about the web client. Mostly that it was slow and awkward. Google Play music was actually fantastic. Such a shame that it got killed. I agree that moving it under YouTube was the logical move but they should have just rebranded rather than writing a shitter version.

deaddodo 3y ago
1 - not sure what your issues were with the recommendation algorithm. It seems to be a mix of the GPlay Music algo with YouTube's built-in. The playlists I get are fine and don't usually repeat until ~35 songs (only if you don't have auto-load enabled for the playlist, if you do it can go much longer). Spotify most definitely has better prebuilt and community radios/playlists, however. 2 - this is probably the worst feature dropped from the GPlay -> YT transition. It's clear they're trying to discourage personal library use. 3 - I've not seen this issue and generally I get a two-three song buffer. I imagine this has to do with your settings and device configuration. I don't doubt your issue, simply can't corroborate it. 4 - the overall UX and client (web and native ones) have both improved drastically in the time I've used it. I stuck to GPlay for as long as possible because of it's terribleness, but it seems pretty useable these days. That's all going to be preference though.

LoganDark 3y ago

You could cut it down to zero if you just download the music you like. Then you won't have to worry about it being in The Cloud and able to disappear / revoke your access at any moment.

whalesalad 3y ago
the cost of hunting down media + maintaining a library + making it portable across all my devices is totally worth $10/mo.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  TBH I only download things from YouTube into a folder and I just use Syncthing to make it portable when it matters. But I'm not particularly "on the go" so I don't bother with mobile devices, or generally any wireless things. I don't organize playlists or anything. Every piece of music I have ever downloaded is in one playlist. I access a song by name when I want to hear it.