Good article, interesting. (Seems like a good/better tech website, I subscribed.)
Inside YouTube?s plan to win the music-streaming wars
YouTube has always been important to the music business. Now, with YouTube Music, it's trying to build a music universe Spotify and Apple can't touch.
https://www.protocol.com/youtube-music#toggle-gdpr
YouTube Music is YouTube's attempt to put all the best parts of the music industry into a single space. | Photo: YouTube
David Pierce November 18, 2020
[...] With that relationship on the right track, YouTube has now set on a different path: to assert and extend its dominance in the space. YouTube doesn't want to be the place users discover new songs, only to leave and pay $10 a month to stream them on Spotify. It wants to put the entire music business onto a single platform. It has spent the last couple years building and improving the YouTube Music service, developing its very own $10-a-month premium streaming app. Now it's shutting down Google Play Music, ramping up promotion for YouTube Music and preparing to battle with the giants.
On one hand, YouTube's about a decade late to the party. YouTube said Music has more than 30 million paid subscribers (up 60% since last year), but Spotify has 144 million. Apple Music has more than 60 million. And that's not including Pandora, Deezer, Tidal and the countless other ways people already listen to music.
On the other hand, it's YouTube. It has entrenched, undeniable advantages, an audience larger than all its competitors combined and practically infinite resources. "It is arguably a better fit for Gen Z and younger millennials than Spotify is, as YouTube as a whole plays a much bigger part of their overall digital lives," said industry analyst Mark Mulligan. For the last several years, YouTube has squandered all of that, with one bad or bailed-on idea after another. But now, YouTube has a plan for how to win the music wars.
[...etc...]
And while YouTube tries to become like music services, other services are becoming more like YouTube: Spotify continues to invest in video, and Facebook just signed a big deal to become another official home for music videos online. YouTube still has big advantages, but time has eroded some of them. If there are better places to go, the music business will go there.
But there's one thing YouTube still has going for it: Everyone's already listening to music there. All YouTube Music has to do is keep helping billions of people discover new music and then keep them from leaving when they do.
Inside YouTube?s plan to win the music-streaming wars
YouTube has always been important to the music business. Now, with YouTube Music, it's trying to build a music universe Spotify and Apple can't touch.
https://www.protocol.com/youtube-music#toggle-gdpr
YouTube Music is YouTube's attempt to put all the best parts of the music industry into a single space. | Photo: YouTube
David Pierce November 18, 2020
[...] With that relationship on the right track, YouTube has now set on a different path: to assert and extend its dominance in the space. YouTube doesn't want to be the place users discover new songs, only to leave and pay $10 a month to stream them on Spotify. It wants to put the entire music business onto a single platform. It has spent the last couple years building and improving the YouTube Music service, developing its very own $10-a-month premium streaming app. Now it's shutting down Google Play Music, ramping up promotion for YouTube Music and preparing to battle with the giants.
On one hand, YouTube's about a decade late to the party. YouTube said Music has more than 30 million paid subscribers (up 60% since last year), but Spotify has 144 million. Apple Music has more than 60 million. And that's not including Pandora, Deezer, Tidal and the countless other ways people already listen to music.
On the other hand, it's YouTube. It has entrenched, undeniable advantages, an audience larger than all its competitors combined and practically infinite resources. "It is arguably a better fit for Gen Z and younger millennials than Spotify is, as YouTube as a whole plays a much bigger part of their overall digital lives," said industry analyst Mark Mulligan. For the last several years, YouTube has squandered all of that, with one bad or bailed-on idea after another. But now, YouTube has a plan for how to win the music wars.
[...etc...]
And while YouTube tries to become like music services, other services are becoming more like YouTube: Spotify continues to invest in video, and Facebook just signed a big deal to become another official home for music videos online. YouTube still has big advantages, but time has eroded some of them. If there are better places to go, the music business will go there.
But there's one thing YouTube still has going for it: Everyone's already listening to music there. All YouTube Music has to do is keep helping billions of people discover new music and then keep them from leaving when they do.
