YouTube Music & Google Play Music pass 15M subscribers, lag behind Apple, Spotify [u]

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited May 2019
YouTube Music and Google Play Music, which will ultimately merge, have together surpassed 15 million subscribers -- leaving Google plenty of ground to catch up with Apple Music. [Updated with YouTube statement]

Dark ambient artist Raison d'etre.
Dark ambient artist Raison d'etre.


The information comes from two anonymous sources and hasn't been made public, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. It also includes people on promotional trials, whereas most online music services only share confirmed subscriber numbers.

Officially YouTube would say only that YouTube Music and Premium grew 60% between March 2018 and March 2019. Premium includes both Music and ad-free video.

Apple Music launched in June 2015, and is believed to have somewhere north of 50 million paid subscribers worldwide. It has even trumped Spotify Premium in the U.S., although it's still far behind Spotify overall. The Swedish company recently topped 100 million Premium customers worldwide, and 217 million listeners in total -- 2 million of them in India, which has only had Spotify since February.

Play Music was Google's first on-demand music service, arriving in 2011, but has struggled to gain much of a foothold. In fact 2015's YouTube Music was arguably a response to people putting on music videos for free -- a Music Premium subscription is required for offline caching, mobile background listening, and removing ads.

Update: YouTube issued a statement on a related Wall Street Journal story to AppleInsider.

"YouTube aggressively disputes the WSJ report stating YouTube Music subscription growth has plateaued, countering that healthy subscription growth continued through Q1 of this year," a spokesperson said.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    For me this is the best streaming bang for the buck value bar none.  $15 family plan gets ad free YT + GPM for me, the wife, and both daughters.  For our use, it's terrific.  The family plan meant I got to avoid an addition Apple Music sub for my daughter's iPhones.  Couldn't really care less if the service has fewer subs than Spotify or AM.  As long as Google doesn't cancel it (as they are wont to do with their services), I'll be subscribed.  Since they are both being rolled into YT, I'm fairly certain they'll be around for a while.
    chemenginbala1234Carnage
  • Reply 2 of 14
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    lolliverlostkiwiAppleExposedwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 14
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Hmmm.  I was unaware Google sold anything to advertisers besides ad space based on anonymous aggregated data.  I guess we learn something new every day.  Google sells listening habits.  Good to know.
    Carnagegatorguy
  • Reply 5 of 14
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 
    Carnage
  • Reply 6 of 14
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    eightzero said:
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 
    eightzero said:
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 
    Not even close. You're not giving Google nearly enough credit for doing what they do best and are best at, collecting data on everyone using Google anything and using that data in order to charge a premium to their customers, for placing targeted ads.

    With AI, I mostly only see ads advertising Apple products, which would not be uncommon given most people visiting this site would be interested in Apple products and products for their Apple devices. (I used to see fashion clothing ads but they're gone now.) And I'm sure nearly everyone visiting this site sees the same ads. AI don't know anything about the people viewing their web pages, except maybe what's on the viewer profile, if they log in with an AI account. Hardly enough information there to place targeted ads. Nor do AI collect any data from their viewers for the purpose of selling targeted ads on their site or by tracking everywhere their viewers goes on the internet.  

    If AI was like Google, each person visiting this site might see different ads based on what Google knows about you. If you use Google search engine and did some research on electric cars, then you might see an ad for an electric car from an electric car maker that paid Google for targeted ads. If you went to Amazon and looked at kitchen knives, an Amazon ad might show up with a deal for a set of kitchen knives. If you like Starbucks, a coupon would show up for you to use for the Starbucks in your area. If you use Google Map, Google knows where you live and where you go and can places ads for local retailers in your area or the area you visit most often.

    If Google research shows that people that likes to listen to classical music are more likely to buy certain products than people that likes to listen to rock or rap, then the classical listeners visiting AI would see different ads than the viewers that likes to listen to rock or rap. If you're close to 50 years old or older, you might see an ad for AARP but  not if you're 25 years old. Google knows how old you are and know not to waste ad space for AARP on you. And the ads for male viewers might be different than for female viewers. Each have different buying habits and Google knows the difference, based on their data mining. 

    AI free service is not anything like the free service that Google provides. If this free site was run by Google, I wouldn't be surprise if they would be able to collect 5x the ad revenue, that Ai is collecting now. All AI really knows about the people visiting their site, is that they are interested in Apple. Either their products and/or the company itself. 

      
    lolliverAppleExposedjbdragonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 14
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member

    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Hmmm.  I was unaware Google sold anything to advertisers besides ad space based on anonymous aggregated data.  I guess we learn something new every day.  Google sells listening habits.  Good to know.
    The data is only anonymous to the advertisers paying google for targeted ads. The data are not anonymous to Google. Google knows who that data belongs to. But they don't reveal that to their customers. If they did that, then their customers wouldn't need Google to place their ads for them. Why would Google sell the cow, when they have customers lined to buy just the milk? 

    I guarantee you that Google knows the different buying habits of each type of music listeners and it will add to the accuracy of the targeted ads, that they sell to advertisers. Don't under estimated how Google can use what most might consider a useless piece of data, to increase accuracy and thus the price of their targeted ads. Google is really, really good at using every bit of data they can collect on you, in order to make you more of a target, for targeted ads.   

    If Google research reveals that male classical music listeners that are over the age of 40, are more likely to drive expensive foreign cars, then Google will use that data as a selling point to sell targeted ads to the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.  
    edited May 2019 lolliverjbdragonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 14
    davidw said:

    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Hmmm.  I was unaware Google sold anything to advertisers besides ad space based on anonymous aggregated data.  I guess we learn something new every day.  Google sells listening habits.  Good to know.
    The data is only anonymous to the advertisers paying google for targeted ads. The data are not anonymous to Google. Google knows who that data belongs to. But they don't reveal that to their customers. If they did that, then their customers wouldn't need Google to place their ads for them. Why would Google sell the cow, when they have customers lined to buy just the milk? 

    I guarantee you that Google knows the different buying habits of each type of music listeners and it will add to the accuracy of the targeted ads, that they sell to advertisers. Don't under estimated how Google can use what most might consider a useless piece of data, to increase accuracy and thus the price of their targeted ads. Google is really, really good at using every bit of data they can collect on you, in order to make you more of a target, for targeted ads.   

    If Google research reveals that male classical music listeners that are over the age of 40, are more likely to drive expensive foreign cars, then Google will use that data as a selling point to sell targeted ads to the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.  
    I think you have become a victim of Poe's Law.  Sorry for that.  Maybe I should go back and put some emoji in my comment.  I was sarcastically criticizing lkrupp's inaccurate assessment of what Google does.  I'm fully aware of what Google does and I'd bet good money lkrupp is just as aware.  It won't stop him from pushing that false "Google sells your data" narrative though.  
    Carnage
  • Reply 9 of 14
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member
    In America, Google Play listens to you!!

    Funny how bad the U.S. has gotten and people are still asleep. It's like the boiling a frog analogy.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 14
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member

    davidw said:

    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Hmmm.  I was unaware Google sold anything to advertisers besides ad space based on anonymous aggregated data.  I guess we learn something new every day.  Google sells listening habits.  Good to know.
    The data is only anonymous to the advertisers paying google for targeted ads. The data are not anonymous to Google. Google knows who that data belongs to. But they don't reveal that to their customers. If they did that, then their customers wouldn't need Google to place their ads for them. Why would Google sell the cow, when they have customers lined to buy just the milk? 

    I guarantee you that Google knows the different buying habits of each type of music listeners and it will add to the accuracy of the targeted ads, that they sell to advertisers. Don't under estimated how Google can use what most might consider a useless piece of data, to increase accuracy and thus the price of their targeted ads. Google is really, really good at using every bit of data they can collect on you, in order to make you more of a target, for targeted ads.   

    If Google research reveals that male classical music listeners that are over the age of 40, are more likely to drive expensive foreign cars, then Google will use that data as a selling point to sell targeted ads to the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.  
    I think you have become a victim of Poe's Law.  Sorry for that.  Maybe I should go back and put some emoji in my comment.  I was sarcastically criticizing lkrupp's inaccurate assessment of what Google does.  I'm fully aware of what Google does and I'd bet good money lkrupp is just as aware.  It won't stop him from pushing that false "Google sells your data" narrative though.  

    If Apple sold your data you'd be on their ass like flies on horse shit.
    jbdragonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 14
    Christian B ClarkChristian B Clark Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    Google Play Music and YouTube Music are/is the best music. I have tried them all LOL
  • Reply 12 of 14

    davidw said:

    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Hmmm.  I was unaware Google sold anything to advertisers besides ad space based on anonymous aggregated data.  I guess we learn something new every day.  Google sells listening habits.  Good to know.
    The data is only anonymous to the advertisers paying google for targeted ads. The data are not anonymous to Google. Google knows who that data belongs to. But they don't reveal that to their customers. If they did that, then their customers wouldn't need Google to place their ads for them. Why would Google sell the cow, when they have customers lined to buy just the milk? 

    I guarantee you that Google knows the different buying habits of each type of music listeners and it will add to the accuracy of the targeted ads, that they sell to advertisers. Don't under estimated how Google can use what most might consider a useless piece of data, to increase accuracy and thus the price of their targeted ads. Google is really, really good at using every bit of data they can collect on you, in order to make you more of a target, for targeted ads.   

    If Google research reveals that male classical music listeners that are over the age of 40, are more likely to drive expensive foreign cars, then Google will use that data as a selling point to sell targeted ads to the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.  
    I think you have become a victim of Poe's Law.  Sorry for that.  Maybe I should go back and put some emoji in my comment.  I was sarcastically criticizing lkrupp's inaccurate assessment of what Google does.  I'm fully aware of what Google does and I'd bet good money lkrupp is just as aware.  It won't stop him from pushing that false "Google sells your data" narrative though.  

    If Apple sold your data you'd be on their ass like flies on horse shit.
    Yes.  Yes I would.  I would be on any company's ass that sold my data. Just like I would be on Google's ass if they sold my data.  Since they don't, I'm not.  
    Both Apple and Google do targeted advertising.  Both make the data anonymous and aggregated.  Both allow you to opt out of targeted advertising.  So why would I want to get in either company's ass?  If your goal was to imply some bias against Apple, you failed.  There's nothing in any of my comments in this thread that implies anything negative towards Apple.  My comments, as I've stated, are about the false narrative that lkrupp pushed in his comment.  It's simply not true.  To argue otherwise cognitively dissonant. 
    gatorguyAppleExposed
  • Reply 13 of 14
    davidw said:
    eightzero said:
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 

    Not even close. You're not giving Google nearly enough credit for doing what they do best and are best at, collecting data on everyone using Google anything and using that data in order to charge a premium to their customers, for placing targeted ads.
    {snipped for clarity}
    AI free service is not anything like the free service that Google provides. If this free site was run by Google, I wouldn't be surprise if they would be able to collect 5x the ad revenue, that Ai is collecting now. All AI really knows about the people visiting their site, is that they are interested in Apple. Either their products and/or the company itself. 

      
    This is wrong.  AI has a ton of analytics about site visitors.  AI uses Google Analytics. Google Adsense, Facebook Connect, and a host of other trackers.  So that I'm clear, that's not a knock against AI.  They gotta eat and keep the lights on.  So does every other Apple-centric  site.  They all benefit from an association with Google.  Most wouldn't exist without it.
    Again, not knocking AI, just refuting the assertions you made.  
    edited May 2019 gatorguywatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 14
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    davidw said:
    eightzero said:
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 
    eightzero said:
    lkrupp said:
    eightzero said:
    I just discovered Google Play, and it kinda works for what I wanted it to do: stream my digital music collection. iTunes Match requires a yearly subscription, and it then requires a download to work. While GP is limited to 10k songs for free, that is enough for me. It does have is shortcomings (the app itself kinda sucks), but does work (after a fashion) with CarPlay as well. 

    Free is a good price.
    Well, it’s not really free is it. Your listening habits will be sold to advertisers. Remember, YOU are the product.
    Sigh. Kinda like the free service provided by AI? 
    Not even close. You're not giving Google nearly enough credit for doing what they do best and are best at, collecting data on everyone using Google anything and using that data in order to charge a premium to their customers, for placing targeted ads.

    With AI, I mostly only see ads advertising Apple products, which would not be uncommon given most people visiting this site would be interested in Apple products and products for their Apple devices. (I used to see fashion clothing ads but they're gone now.) And I'm sure nearly everyone visiting this site sees the same ads. AI don't know anything about the people viewing their web pages, except maybe what's on the viewer profile, if they log in with an AI account. Hardly enough information there to place targeted ads. Nor do AI collect any data from their viewers for the purpose of selling targeted ads on their site or by tracking everywhere their viewers goes on the internet.  

    If AI was like Google, each person visiting this site might see different ads based on what Google knows about you.

      
    At the moment I'm seeing 18 ad trackers here on AI. 14 of those have absolutely nothing to do with Google and range from Appnexus (an AT ad-targeting company) to Adobe Advertising cloud (yes that Adobe), as well as tracking/ad companies like the Rubicon Exchange and Quantcast. Some of them here can track you both on and off-line, Aggregate Knowledge for instance, to build a unified profile. It doesn't make ads evil, heck we've all discovered some product we loved by seeing some ad for it. You're not being honest if you say you haven't.

    The devil is in the details: How personal are the categories they aggregate (health, medical, religion, sexual persuasion?), how is the data they collect protected, and in what ways is it used? Is it all kept in house, is it anonymized, shared with a parent company for other uses (ex. ATT),  or is it outright sold to a data aggregator such as Acxiom or Oracle to be resold to others?
    edited May 2019 chemengin
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