Youtube Premium launched in Canada and 11 European nations

[captain_to_fire]

Nah. I'd still stick to Spotify and Netflix for my streaming needs as YouTube premium isn't cutting it for me for a couple of reasons.

• Ad-free YouTube is nice and so as playing a YouTube video in the background but the YouTube Premium Originals kinda suck (with a very few exceptions)
• Google Play Music's web interface is way too simple and it has no downloadable program for PC and Mac which will allow offline playback.
• Google Play Music has a fewer song catalog compared to Spotify and Apple Music. Also, new songs tend to arrive late.

 

[suicidalfranco]

how is this better than say Newpipe

[Sniperfox47]

4 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

how is this better than say Newpipe

It ties in with all the Google services meaning you get proper push notifications for channels, can leverage my Google account for recommendations, syncs watch lists with PC, and is just generally easier and more responsive than Newpipe.

 

My previous solution was to jump back and forth between the official app for finding content, and NewPipe for playback but that's a PITA. I'll happily pay a little more a month for Premium so I can do it all in the official app, especially since the family plan is $3 more than the old Google Play Music family plan. $14.99 for GPM is $17.99 if you want YouTube Premium.

[Doobeedoo]

Complete waste. 

[TacoSenpai]

Never understood the value of youtube red.  Don't care about the "original content" playing music in the background and no ads ok you have ad blockers on PC and is only really useful for mobile and even then there are other superior stream players for this. 

[IrshaadH]

What does Youtube premium do for me to warrant $11.99 a month?  

 

I'm already used to the ads and have Spotify configured on all my listening devices...

[IronSoldier]

2 hours ago, IrshaadH said:

What does Youtube premium do for me to warrant $11.99 a month?  

 

I'm already used to the ads and have Spotify configured on all my listening devices...

Bruuuh. It's £17.99 in the UK. That's $23.69 

 

Or is that because i've got the family plan? Google/Youtube your names and structures are confused. 

[IrshaadH]

19 minutes ago, IronSoldier said:

Bruuuh. It's £17.99 in the UK. That's $23.69 

 

Or is that because i've got the family plan? Google/Youtube your names and structures are confused. 

Damnnnn, our family plan is $17.99 ... that's still a huge difference!

[TheUzu]

1 hour ago, IrshaadH said:

Damnnnn, our family plan is $17.99 ... that's still a huge difference!

It’s more the € to £ thing that annoys me as we have the same amount of sales tax ~20% so in terms of the $ to £ thing it’s basically the same before tax.

 

Family plan before tax

USA = $17.99

UK = £14.39 = €16.37 = $18.95

France €14.39 = £12.69 = €16.65

[Andreas Lilja]

What do they mean by background listening? You can listen to the song without streaming the video?

[Noctus]

1 hour ago, Raskolnikov said:

What do they mean by background listening? You can listen to the song without streaming the video?

Yes, you can collapse the video and it wont stop playing. So you could for instance, open utube, play a vid, press home button and it continues playing (you hear it)

 

Basically minimizing for phones.

[Noctus]

21 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I used to use OGYoutube back in the day. I'm sure it still works but I think the project was abandoned. Proceed at own risk

Meh, guess ill just stick to Spotify and Audible for my mobile needs.

[asus killer]

i don't see the value in this. They also won't launch in my country so who cares.

 

On 6/18/2018 at 7:50 PM, Slottr said:

Its like they dont realize that theres ways around ads and alternatives that cost MUCH less

i think it's exactly because they know we can unofficially "skip" the ads that they did this, still they have to lower the price or create more value.

[dalekphalm]

I find it hilarious that so many users are like:

Quote

No ads? Pfff. I already use Ad-Block.

 

Like, seriously guys. You pay the subscription so that your favourite channels still get paid without watching ads. This is not a very different concept then, say, Float Plane Club - except that it's one subscription fee and any channel you watch, gets extra income.

 

Assuming for the moment that it'll be the same payment structure as YouTube Red, basically your minutes watched are divvied up, and payment to the channels are made based on their percentage of your "watch time".

 

It ends up being significantly more income per user than if you relied on Ads. Which you guys don't. Because you use Ad-Block.

 

Look, I don't like most ads too. But I made a specific decision to whitelist Youtube so that the content creators I watch can earn my ad impressions.

 

Now, granted, if you already contribute to LTT (and other channels) in other ways, you could make the argument that it's okay to block the ads. I'm fine with that.

 

But to say there's no value in YouTube premium is kind of hilarious. It directly supports the channels you watch.

[NMS]

I care as much about this as I cared about YouTube Red.

[Andreas Lilja]

13 hours ago, Noctus said:

Yes, you can collapse the video and it wont stop playing. So you could for instance, open utube, play a vid, press home button and it continues playing (you hear it)

 

Basically minimizing for phones.

But it still consumes data as if the video was playing, no? 

 

I knew an app that would only stream audio, but it's been a while. 

[Trixanity]

11 minutes ago, Raskolnikov said:

But it still consumes data as if the video was playing, no? 

 

I knew an app that would only stream audio, but it's been a while. 

I'd say yes but it depends on the implementation. I think it's the case to ensure quick resume when you go back to the app and to enable PiP as well as split screen. I may be wrong of course meaning Youtube has cut the video out of the data.

 

Edit: a search revealed that there is an audio-only mode. I'm not sure if every video supports this feature.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

I'd say yes but it depends on the implementation. I think it's the case to ensure quick resume when you go back to the app and to enable PiP as well as split screen. I may be wrong of course meaning Youtube has cut the video out of the data.

 

Edit: a search revealed that there is an audio-only mode. I'm not sure if every video supports this feature.

I don't see why a video would even need to support audio-only mode. All they need to do is read out the Audio track separately and serve it out to the client. Shouldn't be difficult to achieve.

[Trixanity]

42 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I don't see why a video would even need to support audio-only mode. All they need to do is read out the Audio track separately and serve it out to the client. Shouldn't be difficult to achieve.

Because of copyright and other legal peculiarities. The same reason you have to pay for background playback in the first place. I imagine some would would want to opt out of it if they could or the money to allow it wasn't right.

[PLME888]

No love for The Netherlands?

[dalekphalm]

5 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Because of copyright and other legal peculiarities. The same reason you have to pay for background playback in the first place. I imagine some would would want to opt out of it if they could or the money to allow it wasn't right.

I don't know about that. I would assume the copyright for the video would already be "worth" more than the pure song.

 

Playing the song is playing the song. "Background playback" doesn't give you any extra rights, as far as copyright is concerned.

[Trixanity]

6 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I don't know about that. I would assume the copyright for the video would already be "worth" more than the pure song.

 

Playing the song is playing the song. "Background playback" doesn't give you any extra rights, as far as copyright is concerned.

It isn't though. You buy rights or make deals with limited scope. Background playback has been banned from mobile. Audio-only playback also banned. Until you could pay for it. I could understand banning it after implementing it as a paid feature but it's been banned from the beginning.

 

Background playback for free gives you the ability to circumvent a streaming service subscription. Throw in Adblock and they get no money at all. Free music. The music mafia would throw a hissy fit in an instant.

 

Some apps also disable the video, so there's no penalty for doing this in either battery or data.

 

Ultimately it's a question of money.

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Trixanity said:

It isn't though. You buy rights or make deals with limited scope. Background playback has been banned from mobile. Audio-only playback also banned. Until you could pay for it. I could understand banning it after implementing it as a paid feature but it's been banned from the beginning.

 

Background playback for free gives you the ability to circumvent a streaming service subscription. Throw in Adblock and they get no money at all. Free music. The music mafia would throw a hissy fit in an instant.

 

Some apps also disable the video, so there's no penalty for doing this in either battery or data.

 

Ultimately it's a question of money.

Well hold on, you're introducing several factors that may or may not be related.

 

For example:

You said that background streaming + Adblock means they get no money at all.

 

That is probably why YouTube blocked it.

 

However, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the licensing that YouTube owns for these songs. They could most certainly have a license to playback Audio-Only or Background Streaming (Which is, essentially, the exact same thing), since these services are restricted to Premium only anyway, which is a streaming service now too.

 

It's possible that it's a licensing issue, but I suspect YouTube has that handled easily.

[Trixanity]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Well hold on, you're introducing several factors that may or may not be related.

 

For example:

You said that background streaming + Adblock means they get no money at all.

 

That is probably why YouTube blocked it.

 

However, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the licensing that YouTube owns for these songs. They could most certainly have a license to playback Audio-Only or Background Streaming (Which is, essentially, the exact same thing), since these services are restricted to Premium only anyway, which is a streaming service now too.

 

It's possible that it's a licensing issue, but I suspect YouTube has that handled easily.

I can't create a matrix on a phone but we have multiple scenarios where either YouTube or music rights holders would put their foot down. We have Adblock on both minimized and maximized, we have playing videos maximized and minimized, we have playing audio minimized and maximized and then you can matrix those factors and see how locking down each would be in their interest. Opening up one doesn't necessarily make opening up the other the same. They may want to restrict that still. They want maximum profits. You get that by slicing off pieces and selling each.

 

Does YouTube restrict audio only versions? Probably not. But I imagine vevo and the like considering videos and audio separate products with different rates, agreements and circumstances but YouTube may have negotiated to keep the terms the same.