Why did they remove Google Play Music?
Google Play Music was a music streaming service developed and operated by Google. It launched in November 2011 as part of the rebranded Google Play media store, combining features of the previous Google Music service with the ability to purchase music from the Google Play Store.
Some key features of Google Play Music included:
- Streaming music from the Google Play Music library
- Uploading up to 50,000 of your own songs to the cloud for streaming
- Creating playlists and radio stations based on songs, artists, or genres
- Downloading songs for offline listening
By 2015, Google Play Music had over 1 billion users globally according to Google. It provided a major streaming music competitor to services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Development of Other Google Music Services
In 2015, YouTube launched YouTube Music as a new music streaming service separate from Google Play Music. YouTube Music leveraged YouTube’s massive catalog of music videos and songs to allow users to stream music and watch music videos in one place (https://promusicianhub.com/what-is-youtube-music/).
Over the next few years, YouTube worked to improve YouTube Music with features like offline downloads and background listening. As YouTube Music grew, Google decided to merge it with Google Play Music by bringing YouTube Music Premium and Google Play Music under one paid subscription in 2018 (https://promusicianhub.com/what-is-youtube-music/). This new joint subscription was called YouTube Premium and gave access to both YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Originals ad-free videos in addition to the ad-free playback and background listening from the previous YouTube Red subscription.
The merging of YouTube Music Premium and Google Play Music signaled that YouTube Music was becoming Google’s focus for music streaming going forward.
Declining Usage of Google Play Music
Google Play Music saw a steady decline in active users in the years leading up to its shutdown. According to Wikipedia, the service had over 5 million users in 2013 shortly after launch. However, this number had dropped to less than 2 million monthly active users by 2018. Comparatively, streaming rival Spotify reported over 180 million monthly active users in 2021.
There were a few key reasons for this decline. As Google focused development on YouTube Music starting in 2015, fewer resources were allocated to improving Google Play Music. Meanwhile, competition in the streaming music space was heating up. Services like Spotify and Apple Music rapidly gained subscribers with slick apps and social features. Google Play Music couldn’t keep pace. Its user base gradually eroded over time.
Business Reasons for Removal
A major reason why Google decided to retire Google Play Music was due to redundancy with YouTube Music, another Google-owned music streaming service. As Google already had YouTube Music gaining popularity and absorbing many of Play Music’s features, it no longer made sense from a business perspective to continue investing resources into maintaining two competing music platforms.
Google also has a track record of retiring aging or unpopular products in order to focus engineering resources on their newer and more widely used services. While Google Play Music still had an active userbase, its growth had stagnated compared to faster growing competitors like Spotify and Apple Music. Retiring Play Music allowed Google to direct more focus towards improving YouTube Music and competing more effectively in the music streaming market.
User Reaction to Removal
Many users expressed frustration and disappointment over the removal of Google Play Music, particularly over losing features like their uploaded music libraries. On Reddit, one user complained they could no longer uninstall the defunct Google Play Music app from their device (source). On the iFixit forums, users asked how to fully delete Google Play Music from their phones now that the service was gone (source).
The transition process to YouTube Music also drew many complaints. On Google’s own forums, users voiced frustration over losing access to their Google Play Music libraries and playlists after the switch. One user said there was “seriously no way” to get their Google Play Music content back (source). Overall, many former Google Play Music users were dissatisfied with YouTube Music as a replacement service.
Transition Process
Google announced a transition period to help users move from Google Play Music to YouTube Music. They began shutting down Google Play Music in September 2020, starting with removing the ability for users to upload or download music to the service. Throughout late 2020 and 2021, Google continued prompting Google Play Music users to transfer their libraries, preferences, and recommendations over to YouTube Music.Source
In August 2021, Google Play Music was completely shut down for all users. This coincided with the launch of transfers from Google Play Music to YouTube Music in several new countries. The transfer process brings over playlists, uploads, purchases, likes, and more to YouTube Music. Google provided instructions and guidance to make this transition as smooth as possible for users.
By December 2020, Google had completely terminated support for Google Play Music across all regions. The service is no longer accessible or operational. While the shutdown was gradual over 2020 and 2021, Google Play Music was officially removed for all users by the end of 2021.
YouTube Music Feature Gaps
When YouTube Music launched, it was missing some key features that Google Play Music users had come to rely on. Some of the most notable gaps included:
Uploading personal music libraries – With Google Play Music, users could upload up to 50,000 of their own songs to the cloud and access them alongside streaming content. YouTube Music initially lacked this feature, making it unsuitable for people with large personal collections they wanted to access anywhere.
Desktop app – Google Play Music had a desktop app for managing playlists and libraries and controlling playback. YouTube Music was initially mobile-only.
Casting to speakers – While Google Play Music supported Chromecast and Google Cast compatible speakers, YouTube Music had limited casting abilities at launch.
Subscription gifting – Users could buy Google Play Music subscriptions as gifts for others. YouTube Music did not support this early on.
As YouTube’s development team worked to build up the service, it took time to reach parity with the features Google Play Music fans were accustomed to. The gaps required users to adjust their expectations and habits around music streaming.
Improvements to YouTube Music
Since the launch of YouTube Music in 2018, Google has continued to enhance the service and close feature gaps that existed compared to Google Play Music. Some of the key improvements include:
Adding support for uploading your own music library and playlists in 2020, allowing users to bring their collections from Play Music over to YouTube Music (https://beebom.com/youtube-music-new-features/). This was a major feature that was missing at launch.
Improving recommendations through enhanced machine learning algorithms, providing more personalized suggestions tailored to each user (https://www.gadgetsnow.com/apps/follow-lyrics-and-5-other-new-features-in-youtube-music/articleshow/104730987.cms).
Adding support for features like gapless playback, lyric support, and offline listening (https://beebom.com/youtube-music-new-features/). These helped close the gap to Play Music’s capabilities.
Introducing personalized annual Recap experiences that showcase users’ top artists, songs, playlists and more from the past year (https://www.globalvillagespace.com/tech/youtube-music-recap-not-spotify-wrapped-but-still-fun-gvs/). This provides a fun way to reflect on listening habits.
The Future of YouTube Music
Google has ambitious long-term plans for YouTube Music to become a top competitor in the music streaming space. According to a recent Reddit discussion, YouTube Music will likely continue improving in 2023 with more features, content, and quality of life changes. The goal is to provide a seamless, intuitive user experience that rivals leading services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Some key areas of focus include expanding the catalog of official songs and albums, improving recommendations, and adding more features for music discovery. YouTube Music aims to leverage Google’s strengths in AI, machine learning, and data to provide a personalized music experience. The service plans to highlight user-generated content like remixes and live performances that distinguish it from competitors.
YouTube Music has tremendous room for growth given YouTube’s built-in audience of over 2 billion monthly active users. Converting more users from the main YouTube app to YouTube Music subscriptions will be critical for competing against Spotify, which currently dominates market share. YouTube Music has the benefit of Google’s massive resources and technical expertise to help realize its vision as a top music streaming destination.
Conclusion
In summary, Google Play Music was removed primarily because Google decided to focus their music efforts on YouTube Music instead. Usage of Google Play Music had been declining for years as streaming moved more towards video with YouTube. From a business perspective, it made sense for Google to consolidate its music services into one platform rather than splitting focus and resources across multiple apps.
The transition process from Google Play Music to YouTube Music has had its challenges. While Google tried to make it as seamless as possible by transferring libraries and preferences, YouTube Music inevitably lacks some features that were available in Google Play Music. There is room for improvement in areas like uploads and playlists to reach full parity. However, Google has demonstrated a commitment to enhancing YouTube Music with new features and a better user experience.
Overall, the removal of Google Play Music in favor of YouTube Music represents Google’s strategy to build one strong music brand under their video platform, even if it meant saying goodbye to a beloved service that no longer aligned with their goals. The transition has been a bit bumpy, but YouTube Music is positioned well to be the future of streaming for Google.