
Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio - spankalee
http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2015/06/play-music-ad-supported.html
======
Someone1234
This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I
hate ads.

What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is:

\- Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be
further improved.

\- Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid.

\- Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then
start a YouTube video within a few seconds I get an error telling me I am
already playing media on that device (or similar). What does YouTube have to
do with Google Play Music anyway? YouTube is ad supported, Google Play isn't.
There is no cross-over. This issue shouldn't be a "thing." Plus I might be
watching a YouTube video muted and listening to music (yes, people do that!).

\- The new interface is arguably a step backwards (just like every Google Maps
update). You keep "simplifying" away functionality.

\- The offline playback stuff continues to be pretty clunky to set up. If I
know I am going on a road trip and will be driving out of range, actually
adding that music to the device is a huge pain, and often the easiest way is
just to leave the device playing music for days and let it build up a cache.
Horrible.

~~~
AceJohnny2
> What does YouTube have to do with Google Play Music anyway? YouTube is ad
> supported, Google Play isn't. There is no cross-over.

There is actually cross-over, whether you like it or not (most people don't).
Youtube Music Key:
[https://www.youtube.com/musickey](https://www.youtube.com/musickey)

[http://lifehacker.com/whats-the-point-of-youtube-music-
key-1...](http://lifehacker.com/whats-the-point-of-youtube-music-
key-1662612843)

~~~
baldfat
> whether you like it or not (most people don't)

I say YouTube is probably the number one way most teenagers actually listen to
music. This isn't music videos mostly. It is pictures of the cover art and the
music. I seriously listen to my music through YouTube in another and I am
rarely disappointed in not finding the music I am looking for.

What is not to like. I can listen with the screen turned off. I use this
feature to listen to one off podcast I would like to list to and the YouTube
play list made by users are amazing. Also to have no ads while listening to
YouTube music is great.

~~~
adrusi
There used to be a feature in the youtube app for android to enable background
play. It was removed because now they want you to pay for it. That's not to
like.

No ads is nice, but useless for anyone who is willing/able to install an ad
blocker on their phone. You can promote content producers more effectively by
spending the money you would drop on a subscription on buying an album, going
to a show, subscribing on Twitch or becoming a patron on Gratipay anyway.

Offline access is nice, but other commentors claim it's "clunky", and if it's
not especially convenient, then it doesn't give me anything I havent been able
to do for the last decade with youtube downloader apps.

So really all it does is make the mobile background play a paid feature, which
is obnoxious.

~~~
mikeknoop
Further, they started banning apps that used the YouTube API to background
audio when YouTube's v3 API shipped last month.

It's very anti-user, I use it to listen to longer podcasts in the background.

Worth rooting for:
[http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.pyler.youtubebackgroundpl...](http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.pyler.youtubebackgroundplayback)

------
jakebasile
I enjoy Google Play Music and use it daily (the paid version). I prefer it
over Spotify/Rdio/Beats because it works better with Google Now voice actions,
and I can run it well on every device I care to.

My remaining problem with it is their device limit. You can have 10 total
devices, but you can deauthorize only 4 per year. This sounds like a lot but
if you switch phones often or flash new ROMs you can use it up pretty quickly.
In addition, if you upload music to the service the computer you use counts as
a device. Once you're at your limit there's little you can do and you have no
information on when you'll get a device deauthorization "credit" again. I had
to call Google to get a one-time reset of my authorizations but it would be
nice if they could modernize this some; such as by only using an authorization
if you download music to the device for offline listening.

~~~
jdjb
My bigger issue that two clients cannot be listening to music at the same
time, even if you're a paying member.

I'll often forget to stop streaming the music at work and start listening to
it on the bus on the way home. My workstation at work then fights for control
of the service with my phone and every other song drops out with "another
device is using the service".

~~~
mattmanser
And the really stupid thing happens if you try and play a youtube video while
listening to music. It freaks out about playing a youtube video at the same
time.

Whichever genius at Google came up with that one deserves a rapid promotion
into the tiers of bureaucracy.

~~~
digi_owl
I suspect you need to have a talk to the MPAA/RIAA for that...

------
neves
My Google play killer feature happened other day and wasn't even announced.
They increased the amount of music you can store from 20.000 to 50.000. I have
a very large collection of independent Brazilian music. You can't find these
kind of music in any streaming service. Now I can have a cloud backup of all
my music for free! And I also can here it anywhere. I even bought a new CD
reader and resumed to rip my music collection.

My great fear of these services is that you will have a less diverse music
ecosystem. Sure the average Anglo-American listener has a lot more options,
but if you want to learn about other cultures, you are toast.

~~~
slantyyz
I thought they did this in February? I specifically joined when it was
announced.

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/25/google-play-
music-50000/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/25/google-play-music-50000/)

------
dimino
Why is it always a surprise to folks that Google Play Music exists? Everyone
talks about Pandora, Spotify, Apple, or Amazon, but Google Play Music is never
in the conversation.

I use it and it's _great_.

~~~
Aldo_MX
The sound quality leaves much to be desired.

~~~
bluehazed
How? It's 320kbps.

~~~
Aldo_MX
Bitrate doesn't necessarily correlate with audio quality, you can even
perceive noise or a drop of quality in the audio of the less popular songs.

I'm seriously thinking that Google just licensed the audio they're streaming,
but they didn't even care about getting proper audio files and they're simply
streaming the audio their users uploaded.

~~~
zorlem
I highly doubt that. The risk is too high.

In my country there was a big scandal a few years ago when a couple of radio
stations started playing Billboard Hot 100 songs. I guess they couldn't source
the new songs in time from reputable sources for some reason (licensing
restrictions, logistical failure, no idea...).

So they simply downloaded them from local torrent trackers. The thing blew up,
because a guy that was uploading and seeding the albums put his own catchy
promotional jingle in the middle of most songs.

------
andmarios
A bit offtopic but I am a Google Play Music subscriber. I switched to them
over Spotify because they had a much better UI and UX. I use these music
services at the radio mode mostly and I am pretty sure Spotify's designers
primary concern was how to make users' experience miserable.

Unfortunately Google seems to follow the trend nowadays. Take for example the
Play Music Radio Page. There is a list with photos and titles of my favorite
songs. For every song there are 4 links, one on the thumbnail, one on the play
button inside the thumbnail, one on the title of the song and one under the
thumbnail that opens a menu with additional options. The thing is that none of
these links and options plays the song displayed. Clicking on the song's
title, plays an entirely different song!

Even worse and I think this may indicates the absence of serious dogfooding,
is that I can't anymore select text on the page. Same did spotify. So I can't
play the song and I can't copy-paste its title in the search bar. Instead I
either have to type the title manually or go and search my library.

~~~
mattmanser
UI/UX is subjective. My recent thoughts on the new UX from google is that it's
bloody awful.

When I just want to listen to some random music I just play my thumbs up
playlist. But every time I open Google play, you have to click to open the
hamburger menu because menus are no longer trendy on desktop sites. Want to
have a list of what's playing be your homepage? Impossible in the new google
play, you can only view the playlist in a popup.

Also, it's terrible for music discovery and totally (if unintentionally)
chauvinistic. Their algo is bloody awful, it seems to use one song as the
basis for "I'm feeling lucky" and never mixes up genres. Also, related artists
to females? Other females! I like quite a few female artists, but if you click
"I'm feeling lucky" there's a 20% chance google music will only play me female
artists. And it will spiral into genres I don't even like and have no songs
thumbed up, purely because they're female too. It will never play related
artists from a different sex. I've got a couple of screenies somewhere of a
list of 50 odd songs recommended to me, all female artists.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Their algo is bloody awful, it seems to use one song as the basis for "I'm
> feeling lucky" and never mixes up genres.

Okay, so is the problem that "I'm feeling lucky" is bad because it "never
mixes up genres", or...

> if you click "I'm feeling lucky" there's a 20% chance google music will only
> play me female artists. And it will spiral into genres I don't even like and
> have no songs thumbed up, purely because they're female too.

...is the complaint that "I'm feeling lucky" is bad because it _does_ mix in
genres you don't like based on the sex of the artist?

Because it can't be _both_.

~~~
eterm
The main problem is that "I'm feeling lucky" picks a random song and then
plays that song's station.

It isn't a "random station", basically the issue is that it never reseeds from
your data.

So it's nothing like a station that's good for music discovery based on your
previous _choices_ , it's just discovery based on a previous _choice_.

I'm sure Google could design better, but it's probably just low priority.

------
mrinterweb
My main issue with Google Play Music is that they don't have a desktop app. I
wouldn't even care if their desktop app was a wrapper around their HTML
player. I just want keyboard music controls from my desktop and the ability to
Cmd+Tab to the music app instead of hunting down the browser tab. Without a
desktop app, using Google Play Music is disruptive to my workflow.

~~~
Roritharr
On Windows I use Outcold Player. Pretty good Software that seems just limited
by Googles non-official API.

~~~
Roritharr
It seems they are going out of business soon as the Auth API they based their
business on is getting deprecated. :/ its moments like these where i hate how
the web turned out.

------
infinitone
Is there a full in depth comparison between all these streaming services? I
use Spotify, but I'd like to know if I should switch- the main feature I'm
looking for is better recommendations/discovery. Also it'd be nice to see
actual # of songs each of these services actually have.

~~~
joshstrange
I too would like to see such a comparison but # of songs isn't the important
metric for me, it's # of songs I want to listen to. That's why I hate that
metric, really just tell me which artists you have (or don't have, though this
would never happen) that other services do not...

------
whatok
Being able to upload your own music has been the only reason why I use this. I
have a lot of mixes that aren't commercially available so this is basically
the only way I can listen to them without having the actual MP3s on whatever
device I happen to be using.

------
NoMoreNicksLeft
The comments here are interesting.

They're from a bunch of people complaining about this or that
issue/concern/worry/gripe from Play and a few of its competitors... but it
seems like it never occurs to anyone that it's not 1958 anymore. You don't
have to be a passive consumer that has to put up with this shit.

I run a Plex server at home, I can stream my music anywhere. I've even had a
little luck streaming actual FM radio stations the same way (I haven't found
one yet that doesn't do http streaming on their website, and if you extract
those links and add them to Plex...).

------
ericdykstra
I will never pay for one of these music streaming services.

You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a
significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to
spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something
for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the
convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's music product don't
care that only pennies of that actually goes to the artists.

All that the shift to all-you-can-eat streaming services has done is make it
so that people feel they don't need to buy music (since they're paying for the
right to stream any time, there's no value in purchasing a copy) and shift
where the money goes away from artists.

I'm going to stick with supporting musicians directly, and do what I can to
let people know that it's not that hard to do the same, and that artists
appreciate even a little bit of support a LOT.

~~~
lintroller
By this same thought process, you shouldn't purchase music via iTunes because
Apple takes their chunk first, then the music label gets their share. The
artist is again left with "only pennies". Perhaps you are more upset with
music labels and their part in the process rather than companies like Spotify
and Google Play Music who are simply trying to meet the demands of the modern
consumer.

~~~
ericdykstra
I don't purchase music from iTunes. I give money directly to artists in any
way I can. Whether it's merch, handing money over for a CD directly, buying
them a drink, whatever.

Here's something to try. Think about some songs or some album you go back to
over and over. Think about the way the music makes you feel, if it lifts your
mood, lets you concentrate, or in any way improves your day. How grateful are
you for that great 4 minute track? Or for the 50 minute album you played at
twice per week last summer?

Did each listen of that song bring you 5 cents worth of joy? Or maybe even
just 2 cents? If you have a last.fm account, you can look at your plays and
total it up. I have well over 5000 plays for my most listened-to artist. The
next time I see them, I can give them $100 in return for nothing, and just say
"thank you" for making great music and encourage them to make more.

It's not about these companies being evil, or the business model being wrong.
It's that very rarely does anyone consider the people behind the works that
they listen to every day, even if that music has some personal importance or
sentimentality. The reality is that those people who put out your favorite
album are probably working part time jobs just to keep producing music, even
if they have enough notoriety to be invited to international music festivals,
or are even lucky enough to have a song licensed for a tv show or commercial.

Musicians will continue to make music out of passion, even if they have no
hope or even aspiration of commercial success. Any bit of encouragement and
support you can give will give them extra motivation to keep producing music,
which is a benefit to you, as a fan of what they do, and also a benefit to
other fans.

I'm probably just rambling to a wall here, but if you're someone who has their
day slightly improved by music, take some time to consider if you want to be
one of the few who supports the people who make your life better. Because they
certainly aren't being supported by the services that you're using to listen
to them.

------
simon_weber
I wonder what this means for the folks using unofficial clients? I know there
are clients for Mopidy and Squeezebox built with [https://github.com/simon-
weber/gmusicapi](https://github.com/simon-weber/gmusicapi).

------
Mahn
I've been considering subscribing to a music service lately, but there are so
many nowadays that I have honestly no idea how to decide. For those of you
with experience in this area, what criteria would you recommend? what should I
look for, other than the music itself?

~~~
chrisper
If you have iOS, then wait 7 more days until Apple Music is coming out. My
Spotify premium thing expired after 1 year now, so I have tried out all music
services out there this month. My conclusion is that if Apple Music does not
provide the integration I am seeking for (since I have an iPhone), I will just
go back to Spotify. I am currently on the Google Play Music trial. It is
pretty good, but I do not like the "Android" app on my iPhone. If you have an
Android, I'd go with Google Play Music.

~~~
naspinski
So your advice is to go with something that isn't out or proven in any way
over a proven service because "I do not like the 'Android' app on my iPhone"?

~~~
chrisper
I said to go with Spotify OR Apple music (if it is any good). I also said that
Google Play music is fine, but not for me.

------
tosseraccount
Whatever happened to Icecast, Shoutcast and just listening to a stream from a
radio station?

------
GI_Josh
Now that a portion of the service is going free, I'm interested to see if they
start to add offerings to the paid, all access tier. As a paying monthly
customer, I'd love to have the option to enable lossless streaming, for
example.

~~~
fpgeek
Well they did add YouTube Music Key (no ads, background play and offline
access for many music videos) pretty recently, but they've done their typical
terrible job of publicizing that.

------
rip747
Been an iHeartRadio fan for a few months now. Love the fact that they normal
only play an ad when you first load it and thats it (and usually its an
AllState ad with Dean Winters who was AWESOME in Oz).

Never really gave Google Play Music a shot since, quite honestly, no one every
talks about it. I've tried Pandora and Spotify and they weren't all that
great. Well Pandora was only good because if you install AdBlock you never got
ads. I'll have to try it out and see if maybe a switch is in my future.

------
hedgew
The main reason I won't use Google Music is the lack of playlist folders.
There's no way to organize playlists, and the player becomes quite unusable if
you have even a few dozen playlists.

I'm surely not the only one who likes making and sharing playlists for
different moods and occasions. It would be interesting to know why such a
simple yet important feature is missing.

~~~
eterm
Google doesn't really do _folders_ (see gmail), but playlist _tagging_ would
certainly be a feature I'd appreciate.

I personally am finding they are going backward though, I've been a subscriber
for a while but they've just removed the radio icon over radio stations so
it's hard to see in the recent activity whether it was a radio or actual
album.

------
sytelus
What I would really like to see is some standards to share your preferences,
ratings and playlists among music services. Pandora and most other services
locks you down and won't let you get your data. I think Google has great
opportunity to be different here.

------
omouse
Is there a reason why no one has tried to add 10 to 30 second spots to these
streaming services? Is the temptation to have ad spots after every song too
great to resist? Or are ad spots just too hard to measure and often times
ineffective?

~~~
hyperion_
I remember using Spotify many years ago, and back then they played an ad spot
every few songs (not every song), so it has been tried at least.

~~~
malnourish
Isn't that also how Pandora (free tier) works?

------
hobarrera
"free" and "ad-supported" are mutually exclusive if you ask me.

------
astaroth360
Ha, awesome, hopefully this takes any wind that was there out of Apple's
sails(and sales), heh. Once again, Apple puts out a feature 5 years late and
is praised...

------
albatross_down
Is anyone else extremely annoyed by the album art animation? The animation
zooms in so far that you can only see half of the album, which defeats the
purpose.

------
Yuioup
"Free, ad-supported radio".

You mean like ... real radio right?

------
fenomas
Unfortunately still region locked where I am (Japan).

All the other various streaming services seem to work here - I wonder what the
issue is for Google's?

~~~
slantyyz
I'm kinda surprised, it's working for me in Canada even though it's only
supposed to be for the US.

Also I don't understand what they mean by "ad supported". How will that work?
I am not a paid user, and I've been listening for almost an hour and still
haven't heard one ad yet.

------
baggachipz
I'd gladly switch to this service if they didn't count it against my data
allotment in Project Fi.

------
zatkin
The competition for music is heating up!

------
guelo
It's smart marketing to have an announcement this week to steal some of
Apple's free press.

------
guelo
I've been listening for an hour and haven't heard an ad. Weird.

------
0xFFC
Personally I prefer Spotify over Google Play Music or Apple Music, I don't
know, I really care about startups and I think Google and Apple becoming to a
hungry companies which eats other ones idea with their unlimited budget.

~~~
bitmapbrother
LOL You care about startups? Then you should care about their
investors....which are the music labels.

------
mizzack
These activity based stations/playlists are all available on Songza... Which,
by the way, is free and ad-free. Not sure what I'm missing, here.

~~~
Oletros
Google bought Songza last year

~~~
mizzack
Right. The playlists are the same, the activities are the same. Songza still
doesn't have ads -- but this does.

------
guelo
Do they have Taylor Swift's stuff?

~~~
cheald
It doesn't have 1989, but her other stuff is there.

------
makeitsuckless
ad supported <> free

I wish people would stop echoing that. It would make it so much more possible
to have a meaningful discourse about ad supported business models. We don't
call anything else that requires something in return "free"

~~~
oldmanjay
Well sure we do. We call "free software" free, even though it requires that
any distributed changes are accompanied with source. Of course, the free
software people are also constantly up in arms that the world doesn't use
their specific desired definitions of words. I guess you're in good company.

------
thekevan
Unless I'm missing something, this pretty much makes it a Pandora clone.

~~~
dragonwriter
As I see it, it now completely subsumes Pandora's main functionality leaving
Pandora without any big distinguishing features (except perhaps an argument
over whether its matching technology is better), but its not a Pandora clone,
because Google Play Music still lets you manage your own library of music
either purchased through Google Play or imported from elsewhere as well as
providing free ad-supported and paid ad-free streaming.

------
aikah
Yay , more micro dollars for artists ...

~~~
fizzbatter
If only Music Artists didn't get ripped off by Recording Labels. Streaming
isn't the problem imo, Artists making $21 for every $1000[1] is the problem

Yes, you make "less" on a Streaming service than me paying you $10, but if you
decide to both have a label which takes 98% of your profit, AND allow your
music to be Streamed (which offers a better UX, but less direct monitization),
then you're making poor choices, imo.

Streaming services (music/movies/etc) are becoming standard because the UX is
excellent. They may need some tweaking, but it is a painless UX. Imo, they're
here to stay, and for good reason.

[1]: as i last saw from another HNer, when these conversations get repeatedly
brought up. Unfortunately i don't have the cite.

------
Animats
Anyone working on an ad blocker?

------
gress
Google announces me too...

~~~
Oletros
What mee too? To Pandora?

