Amaya Toman Despite the growing popularity of streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify, there is a relatively large number of users who listen to music via the YouTube network. Its creators want to take advantage of this and offer users uninterrupted listening for a fee.
The ideal combination?
YouTube's strategy is clear, unobtrusive and, in a way, brilliant – the music video server gradually adds more and more ads that make listening very unpleasant. At first glance, the listeners are not actually forced to do anything, but the truth is that YouTube is trying to get more subscribers for its newly prepared service. This could theoretically be created by merging the YouTube Red and Google Play Music platforms. From the combination of both mentioned services, the founders of the new platform promise above all an increase in the user base. However, further details have not yet been published.
Admittedly, the YouTube ecosystem is quite complicated these days. Within it, YouTube offers a number of services, including premium ones, but these are only available to a certain range of users and under certain conditions.
It could be interest you
“Music is very important to Google and we are evaluating how to merge our offerings to provide the best possible product for our users, partners and artists. Nothing is changing for users at this time, and we will publish enough information before any changes," said a statement issued by Google.
According to its founders, the new music service should bring users "the best of Google Play Music" and offer the same "breadth and depth of catalog" as the existing video platform. But many users got used to it, and as you know, habit is an iron shirt. That's why YouTube wants to ensure their transition to the new service by flooding them with ads.
The speculated launch date of the service should have been March of this year.
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YouTube as a music service? No longer.
The aforementioned platform has not yet been launched, but YouTube is apparently already trying to "attune" users to it. Part of the strategy is primarily the addition of a large volume of advertisements to music videos - precisely the absence of advertisements will be one of the main attractions of the upcoming new service.
Users who use YouTube as a form of music streaming service and play long music playlists on it have to deal with annoying ads more and more. "When you're listening to 'Stairway to Heaven' and a commercial immediately follows the song, you're not excited," explains Lyor Cohen, head of music at YouTube.
But the YouTube network also faces complaints from creators - they are bothered by the placement of unauthorized content, from which artists and record companies do not see a single dollar. The revenue of the YouTube network was about 10 billion dollars last year, and the overwhelming majority of it is generated from advertisements. The introduction of a subscription for a streaming service could bring the company even higher profits, but it all depends on the quality of the services provided and the response of users.
Do you use music streaming services? Which do you prefer the most?
Source: Bloomberg, TheVerge, DigitalMusicNews
