
YouTube Introduces a Paid Service Called Music Key - applecore
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/business/media/youtube-introduces-a-paid-service-called-music-key.html
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Chevalier
To me, the re-introduction of the $8/month fee for Google Play Music All
Access (mercifully rechristened as Google Play Music) is the most important
part of this announcement. Apple is reportedly wooing publishers to allow them
to sell Beats subscriptions for $5/month, which matches the average spending
for top iTunes customers.

If iTunes' best customers spend $60/year, asking $120/year from EVERYONE seems
ridiculous. Spotify recently tried to address this flaw with family plans that
drop the cost to $6/month for a family of five -- but that's still too much
hassle in what should be a dead-simple transaction. Steam demonstrated the
revenue potential of irresistibly priced digital goods a decade ago... I don't
know why music has been so slow to catch up.

\- - - - -

The Youtube Key portion of the announcement is great, I guess, but not for me
personally. I don't watch many music videos and have been able to download
them forever through third-party extensions anyway.

However, in the audience that DOES watch music videos -- young, female, often
tech-illiterate -- there's quite a bit of money waiting to be tapped. Years
ago, iTunes scored big by offering that demographic hassle-free music
downloads rather than piracy or CD ripping.

I doubt ad-free YouTube is as compelling an offer, but it's probably worth
something to regular visitors; and if Spotify/Beats/Play/Rdio are fungible,
then maybe YouTube Key will be the unmatchable add-in that sells Google music
subscriptions. Lower prices are probably more valuable to customers than ad
skipping is, though.

------
tkmcc
> As part of the introduction of Music Key, YouTube’s music catalog is getting
> a makeover for all users, paying or not. The site will now offer complete
> albums, adding static video files with high-quality audio where no official
> videos are available.

This is great news for for the huge audience that builds massive music
playlists on YouTube and uses them as their primary music consumption
mechanism.

> For paying subscribers, YouTube will add two features that will be
> especially attractive to users on mobile devices: the ability to play songs
> in the background while using other apps and to save songs for offline
> listening.

Really? Both of these features are implemented in plenty of third-party apps.
I guess it makes more sense to view the service as a Google Play Music
subscription with some added goodies, but still...

~~~
wodenokoto
Such third party apps often have their dev keys revoked for offering such
features.

