
Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan - espeed
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/09/google-begins-rolling-out-google-play-music-family-plan-14-99-for-up-to-6-people/
======
buro9
Sigh.

Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains.

I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for
Google Play Music, for apps, for films.

But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing
whether some features will even come to my account.

Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997.

They could easily add this capability, default disabled, to the domain
management page.

Edit: Has anyone tried it the other way around? What if I associate my credit
card to my wife's regular gmail account and get the family plan there, could
we add accounts that belong to Google Hosted domains to a family created via
gmail? Or is the definition of family purely gmail users?

~~~
jakebasile
It's gotten so that any time I see something new from Google, the first thing
I do is check if I can even use it. Often I am disappointed. I still can't use
Fi, and Google Now is almost useless because it refuses to use my email to
customize itself.

~~~
c5karl
It is possible to get full Google Now functionality in a Google Apps domain.

Go to the Google Apps Admin Console
([https://admin.google.com/AdminHome](https://admin.google.com/AdminHome)).

Navigate to Apps > Additional Google Services

You'll see a gray bar at the top of the screen ("Filter: Top featured
services"). Click the "X" on the top right to disable that filter.

Scroll down to "Web History" and select "On for everyone."

Each user may then need to also enable Web History for his or her own account
([https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/search](https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/search)).

No, it shouldn't be that hard, but, yes, that will work.

------
baldfat
Google Play Music, YouTube Red and YouTube Music is my favorite service.

I have tried Spotify and Amazon and others. Google has two killer features.

1) I can upload my own music (20,000 songs) for free and stream for free. I
have eclectic taste and some of my music isn't in the 35 million songs
available.

2) The YouTube (Red (no ads), Music and Gaming) really are great on mobile.

~~~
refriedbeans3
What made you decide to purchase YouTube Red? How much YouTube content do you
watch?

~~~
mythz
You get a YouTube Red subscription free with Google Play Music. YouTube Red
changed how I listen to music, now I just leave YouTube playlists playing in
the background - whereas before with ads it was unbearable.

------
semenko
Yet another service not available to Google Apps users. :/

"You can only set up a family group with a personal Google Account, not a
Google for Work or Google for Education account"

~~~
SeanAnderson
It's a family plan...? Why would you expect to be able to use a Google for
Work or Google for Education account?

~~~
sowbug
Many such accounts are used by individuals for personal purposes. It's the
only non-hokey way to use Gmail with a vanity domain.

By now, many of us have app and content purchases tied to those accounts, and
migrating from Gmail/Drive/Photos isn't practical, so we're stuck getting new
Google features later or never.

~~~
mjs7231
Is forwarding mail to your personal gmail account from the domain registrar,
postfix, or whatever else you use considered hokey? It works really nice in
all instances I've done that. It even replys from the same address mail was
sent to once you verify you own the email address.

~~~
caf
Forwarding to gmail often ends up with the forwarding mail server getting
blocked from gmail, because you end up forwarding spam you've been sent as
well.

~~~
Erwin
In my Google Apps control panel I can declare a "gateway" where mail will come
from which avoids this:
[https://support.google.com/a/answer/60730?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/answer/60730?hl=en)

------
Dwolb
Does anyone have insight into Google's strategy on all these subscription
services?

Is it to legitimize previous tech endeavors to make sure they're sustainable
in the long term? Does Google forecast subscription services will make up a
sizable portion of revenue in the future? Is the experience better at Google
than anywhere else due to the vast amount of data and new technology being
created everyday?

I'm not sure I totally get it yet because the revenue Google stands to capture
in these markets feels incremental compared to their main advertising and
marketing businesses.

~~~
jeffjose
With ad revenues drying up (Adblock, general lack to interest to ads) Google
is forced to look at other avenues to make money and selling stuff to people
is a great way for that.

~~~
hahainternet
> With ad revenues drying up

Haven't their revenues been going up despite the CPC going down?

------
dfar1
$14.99 for 6 people is a great price. But not really for 2 people. I have
spotify and I love it, but I've been wanting to switch to google music for a
while because I already store my music there. With spotify I can share my
premium account with my spouse. You can't use it at the same time, but that
rarely ever happens. It's just 2 of us. And when it does happen I can just
download what I want to hear and then go on offline mode. I also like the
spotify app. It's easy to use.

The problem with google music (or google in general) is that they can't just
be happy with an UI, and so their UI changes constantly which make it for a
poor user experience. Plus, I can't just give my spouse my account because
that means I am giving all of my google services accounts.

~~~
untog
_$14.99 for 6 people is a great price. But not really for 2 people. I have
spotify_

It's better than the price for Spotify, at least.

------
chipperyman573
$15/mo for six users is actually a really great deal - That works out to
$2.50/person/mo. I honestly wasn't expecting anything this great.

~~~
millstone
It's the same deal Apple Music offers, so it should not be so surprising.

~~~
tomjen3
Which is why I do get the excitement. Are their selection much bigger?

~~~
Someone1234
Roughly about the same.

Ad-free YouTube music fills in any gaps. The only thing really lacking is
niche music like Immediate Music's back catalogue (since they aren't working
with a major record label).

------
MichaelGG
Yet the UI for Google Play Music is atrocious. People I give it to that aren't
familiar take forever. Myself, despite using it all the time (earphones,
casting, car BT) find it frustrating. Hit back a few times no woops too many,
OK now I can swipe out the menu and select my library and deal with the
ridiculous amounts of scrolling. Sigh.

The hilarious thing is their Wikipedia scraping. Every time I select an artist
I'm treated to some lame-style photo, and half the screen gets to tell me
"Nirvana was a grunge band from Aberdeen with Kurt.....". Gee thanks Google,
that was worth complicating the UI.

Playlist management is also worse than Windows Media Player. Like, how do you
get that wrong?

This deal is sweet and I'd buy today, but Google is psycho when it comes to
regions. Since it randomly thinks I'm in France or Hungary when in Denver,
plus I travel between Canada and Guatemala, my guess is that features will
randomly stop working or switch language. Otherwise, cool.

~~~
Artistry121
Google Music has 3 features that make music playing / discovery light years
better than my experience with Apple Music and better than Spotify (I'm a
paying Apple Music customer now): 1\. Songza playlists - the playlists for
mood and activity are far more detailed for categories outside of pop and hip-
hop. 2\. Easily start a radio station from any song or artist. 3\. Catalog.
With Youtube Red included nearly every background beat, live show, demo, etc.
recorded is now available to listen to with excellent search capabilities.
Hopefully eventually mixing and matching GPM and Youtube playlists will happen
- but its not a huge problem.

Apple Music has better artist descriptions and artwork - and I like that they
and Spotify display the full album cover when playing on mobile. Apple's focus
on hip-hop and pop though really hurts discovery and UX for those without
those focuses.

~~~
MichaelGG
Yeah they certainly prioritize "discovery" and their radio-ish stuff (which is
intermittently available, even when I haven't moved location). Unfortunately,
I hate radio, and am not much for "discovery". I just want to quickly access
my current library. The fact that Windows Media Player is significantly better
at this than Play Music is sad.

(It's really annoying in a car. I pull over, but I wanna be fast. Google Now
is hit or miss if it'll properly play. Sometimes it just searches. Sometimes
it plays off of YouTube. Etc. You'd think by now they could get this basic
flow down, without harming their neato stuff I don't want.)

------
jdeibele
Where can you sign up? I tried on the page linked from the blog. I tried from
the Google Play app on my old Nexus 5.

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning?

~~~
bweitzman
in the google music app, not play, go to the hamburger menu -> settings.
Should be at the top under the account section, you may need to hit the
refresh button under the same the section.

~~~
jdeibele
Thanks. The problem was that I had to click on "Free plan" when I was looking
for subscribe. It's great that they give 30 days free but that's not what I
was looking for.

------
mayneack
Do we know what the deal is with uploading music? Can I upload music for just
me or does my family have to share the 20k song limit? I'm not even sure which
version of this I would prefer. I know between us we have more than 20k songs
we'd upload, but we also could probably get by with being more selective about
uploads because I've certainly uploaded some dupes.

------
IshKebab
US only.

~~~
turing
It's actually US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France and Germany.

------
hohenheim
I got a similar offer from Spotify this week!

------
johnthomas14
that's a good move!

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mitkok
Spotify does not have family plan ? Such a bullshit -
[http://i.imgur.com/BGhi6uk.png](http://i.imgur.com/BGhi6uk.png). This is what
I call paid article. Good job, TechMunch.

~~~
kuschku
Why was this comment flagged? It contains factual criticism and provides even
sources for why a statement given in the article is wrong.

That’s most definitely "contributing to discussion".

~~~
gergles
They don't offer this plan in the US, which is the only place this GPM
subscription is available, so it isn't relevant to the discussion, and the
tone is unnecessarily hostile to boot.

~~~
kuschku
Oh, GPM is US-Only? That’s seriously annoying.

I agree with you about the tone, though.

------
shmerl
When will they start selling music in FLAC?

~~~
izzydata
When our ears evolve to support such formats.

~~~
shmerl
You don't need FLAC for listening. It's needed for storing master copies and
encoding to other codecs when you need to. Same feature that audio CDs always
offered, and which was gutted by services which only provide some lossy codec
as an option.

~~~
izzydata
Isn't google play music a streaming service though? It really doesn't seem
like the place for that.

~~~
shmerl
What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? I always prefer
to have my music backed up and available on my devices without relying on any
cloud services.

I view streaming as a convenience, and not as an approach that requires one to
forgo having a DRM-free backup.

~~~
untog
_What stops them from offering an option to get files as well?_

Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. If you
cancel your subscription you'll lose whatever you have downloaded. Offering
you a file you can easily convert into a different format would break that
pretty comprehensively.

~~~
shmerl
_> Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files._

And why is that exactly?

 _> Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files._

Not sure what they gain by it. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not
really interested in renting digital goods. That's why I'm not using Google
Play and similar stores for music. Bandcamp offers DRM-free music in FLAC for
example, and there once you buy it - you keep it.

~~~
simoncion
> > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files.

> And why is that exactly?

As untog says: "Because it is a streaming service, not a download service."

People make a fair bit of money on software and services that attempt (with
varying degrees of success) to automate music industry billing. Music industry
billing is complicated because music industry licensing is (needlessly)
complicated.

Streaming services typically have substantially different royalty rates than
services that make it easy to save a copy of a given audio file. What's more,
the license is very likely to have reporting requirements attached to it,
along with different rates for partial plays and the like. These rates and
reporting requirements may vary wildly from song to song and from album to
album.

Have you ever wondered why there isn't _one_ audio and _one_ video streaming
site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on
the Internet?

It's because

* The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash.

* As Big Music learned from Apple, permitting a single entity to distribute pretty much all of your product _substantially_ reduces Big Media's negotiating power. [0] This means that Big Media makes less money and... refer back to point #1.

[0] Being able to credibly threaten to remove something from the catalog, or
be a gigantic ass and demand _substantially_ more money for an entire album,
rather than " _most_ of the album, _except_ for those couple of songs that are
_really_ good" helps to keep their rates high.

~~~
shmerl
_> Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming
site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on
the Internet?_

I indeed wondered about that :) All those release limitations always looked
stupid to me.

 _> The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things
easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash._

They are just blind with their thirst for control, which outweighs their
thirst for money. They are losing money on making things harder for their
users. For instance DRM means lost sales for them. Same goes for fractured
releases and poor availability of what they offer. They might gain some power
to tell who can get what, where and when, while in practice they reduce reach
of what they make which means less profit.

Avoiding too much distributor's leverage can be an issue if there is only one
distributor or some collusion between them. If there is healthy competition,
they can always ditch one and chose a competitor which balances this issue. In
a healthy market, creators should distribute all their content through all
available distributors.

~~~
simoncion
Whatever theoretical money they _definitely_ lose through their control-freak
tendencies is small potatoes compared to the unending money stream that their
lust for control all-but-guarantees them. I get your point, and it's a very
valid point, but they _already_ make shitloads of cash, their RoI is _huge_ ,
they -collectively- control and maintain the rights to a really rather good
golden goose, and they are _still_ good at acquiring and securing the rights
to _new_ stuff that is in demand (whether manufactured or genuine).

> If there is healthy competition, they can always ditch one and chose a
> competitor which balances this issue. In a healthy market, creators should
> distribute all their content through all available distributors.

Perhaps my brain is poisoned by looking at this through the eyes of Big Media.
How would this work? Remember a few things:

* There _really_ aren't that many companies in Big Media, but they've managed to amass _quite_ a lot of power, and influence, and a _fair_ bit of money.

* If all media that is made available is made available through all channels at the same wholesale price, then retail sellers can only distinguish themselves through ease of use, lower overhead (which enables lower retail price), or other "value-adding" things like social networking integration.

What's to prevent the five or ten _real_ media distribution heavyweights that
would inevitably emerge from doing the _very_ same thing that Big Media
currently does to _everyone_ : using strong-arm tactics and back-room
collusion to keep Big Media weak and in a position where the _distributors_
set the price?

~~~
shmerl
_> they already make shitloads of cash_

And I don't understand why they wouldn't to make more. Removing all those
pesky restrictions would just give them even more sales than they already get.
All I can guess is like I said above - they value control over reach and
profit (calling them control freaks was very appropriate ;)).

 _> Perhaps my brain is poisoned by looking at this through the eyes of Big
Media. How would this work?_

I'm looking at it simply from perspective of potential creator. Most of the
time I personally don't care about "big media" and its dull commercial mass
market art. But going back to creators - for me it seems pretty simple. Let's
say someone wrote music, a book or made a film or computer game or whatever
other artistic work. They need to break even and profit to be able to create
more art. So, the way the do it is by reaching as many people as possible,
right? And distributors come in play and help them to increase that reach. The
more distributors they use, the more potential people they'll reach. Any kind
of exclusives would mean lower reach for them. Pretty straightforward, no?

 _> If all media that is made available is made available through all channels
at the same wholesale price, then retail sellers can only distinguish
themselves through ease of use, lower overhead (which enables lower retail
price), or other "value-adding" things like social networking integration._

Distributors can compete on features like you said. Exclusives of course give
them an advantage, but only they benefit. It hurts both creators and people
who are forced to use certain distributor to get what they want. For instance,
many computer games (which is probably one of the most successful art forms
for independent creators today) are released through as many distributors as
possible, obviously to increase reach.

 _> What's to prevent the five or ten real media distribution heavyweights
that would inevitably emerge from doing the very same thing that Big Media
currently does to everyone: using strong-arm tactics and back-room collusion
to keep Big Media weak and in a position where the distributors set the
price?_

Good question. In theory competition + anti-trust laws should prevent that.
Collusion and price fixing are really illegal. But if competition is strong,
they won't be interested in doing it anyway. In practice I agree that anti-
trust laws are rarely enforced, and bad players manipulate the market way too
often.

~~~
simoncion
> And I don't understand why they wouldn't to make more.

In the long run, the industry as a whole _might_ make more money, but it's
certain that each individual company wouldn't.

As you say, investigations into collusion and price fixing are substantially
more rare than they should be. If Big Media loses the ability to refuse to
grant parts of their catalog to one distributor or another, enough
distributors to matter can easily band together to force reductions in media
licensing fees.

> I'm looking at it simply from perspective of potential creator.

Ah. Well, that (in all seriousness) is a useful and valid conversation to
have, but you asked why a site that streamed media controlled by Big Media
wouldn't do the obvious thing and let you download what you stream. The answer
is that Big Media won't let them; sometimes under any circumstances, other
times unless the site pays a _lot_ more than they pay for just streaming
rights.

I agree that the state of Big Media's licensing regime is really _rather_ bad
for society overall, but it's _fantastically_ good for Big Media.

~~~
shmerl
Big media control over creators is gradually eroding with crowdfunding
providing more independence for creators. But as long as people support bad
practices with their money (i.e. buy stuff from DRMed services and the like)
they'll of course feed the machine :)

