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Should I switch to YouTube Premium?

ROBOCRIPPLE

ROBOCRIPPLE

Member
I've had a Spotify premium membership for a few years, already, and already I've built a sizable music library (mostly of trance music). I started with a 3-month discounted price of just $1 or so, and I liked the service that I kept subscribing to it. I like most of the selection of music and the ability to save music in my phone so that I can listen to it offline.

I didn't bother with Google Play Music, Tidal or now YouTube Music. I was also pretty happy that Taylor Swift and other music artists put their music back on Spotify. But now I see a download icon in the mobile version of YouTube; I thought it was an add-on that I installed on Google Play which let me download YT videos on my phone like I can on Netflix, but stopped working for some reason; I clicked on it and it said that that feature is available only with "YouTube Premium."

Lately, I've been listening to Japanese and Korean pop music, including "City Pop" and "Acid Black Cherry" (I actually listened to that band years before I subscribed to Spotify Premium). I wanted to take that music with me on-the-go. I could download the music using a YT-to-mp3 conversion website on my PC, but I don't know how reliable they are anymore, since the last time I tried it didn't work successfully. The YT download apps from the Play store don't seem to be working, either. I even tried to look for the music in Spotify, with little to no success. Looks like the only choice I have is to subscribe to YT Premium...

I've read that YT Premium also gives premium access to YT Music and Play Music. (what about Play Movies?) The only reason I'd want to switch to YT Premium is the ability to download YT videos on my phone, the "legal" way. Is it really worth it? How does YT Music's music selection compare to that of Spotify?
 
Youtube pre. I have to be a member of it, without ads, and you can download as much albums you can added with that library, also with Google TV, and added with youtube, you can download pretty much everything and just save it to your cellphone, but I am always looking for the next step up, and have that downloaded ontop of your comp, so you can have each album download without hogging space either :)
 
I'm only reviving this old thread because things change. I've had YouTube Premium for years (since it was YouTube Red, which wasn't a name well thought out). We have a family membership, which includes ad-free YouTube and YouTube Music.

I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos, certainly no movies, so the ad-free aspect has never really appealed to me. My focus has been on YouTube Music, which I use a great deal everyday. Or I USED.

Really, though, I'm paying a premium price for a sub-premium service. No HD audio; no 360° spatial sound... Google is apparently so focused on maximizing bandwidth that it just assumes no one will consider another service.

Amazon Music Unlimited is Amazon - and I'd rather not enrich either it or Google. Qobuz, however, doesn't allow users to upload personal music libraries. Since I have headphones and earbuds capable of HD music, why would I settle for an overpriced service that doesn't offer it when I can pay less a hear more?

I'll probably just pause YouTube Premium for a month or two, until I know I'm happy with the new service (I've learned to not burn the ships right away)... but I'm open to hearing your thoughts about it.
 
i watch a ton of youtube videos so premium is how i roll. been like that for years. i do not see a reason for me to cancel at the moment.
 
I save my youtube vids mostly I do not use the function to download and watch them offline, there was a few of the past though but kind of digging throughout the millions of songs I listen through the albums I do listen to...
 
I had a change of heart. The Darling Bride watches a lot of fly fishing videos and I will be watching more indoor rowing scenery videos... so I'll keep the YT Premium and add Amazon Music Unlimited for my Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds. It will be interesting to listen to the same song on YT Music and Amazon HD to hear the difference in quality.
 
If only Premium would block the stupid sponsor crap. Sometimes it's 3 minutes of it. I got ads and I'm paying for no ads. Yeah, sponsorblock exists, but it doesn't work on mobile. Not every YouTuber chapters their videos to easily block it and it's in random places usually, (often with a snarky 'hey! surprised you with the ad!' from the creator like it's actually funny) and no idea how long it is, so I'm skipping back and forth until I land on the actual ending. It's super annoying, and often they're already Patreon members so why even bother with hawking the scams like Nord VPN or Skillshare?

I make it an effort to NEVER support the companies they're forcing me to sit and watch them go on about.
 
Exactly - it's not an inserted ad but technically a part of the video. Not much can be done about that. Gotta monetize it, ya know...
 
Maybe it's just my ears, but I don't hear anything different between the same songs on Amazon Music Unlimited and YouTube Music - in fact, YTM has a little more "punch" and AMU seems weaker. I would have expected that had I experienced a wider soundstage... but I don't.

I'll try tweaking the earbuds and my over-ear headset, but I'm pretty sure I'll kill off AMU during the free trial.
 
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