Everything I've read suggests that the G+ / GMail / YouTube integration was forced onto the various parts of Google by executive fiat: The rank & file Google employees were against it, but a company is not a democracy so it was forced on them & by extension us.
Executive culture tends to laud the "visionary leader" who pushes their vision on everyone else. When that vision is wrong-headed you end up with situations like the G+ débâcle: it was a failure of the Google executive, not the employees.
My guess is that we have the same effect in play with the YouTube Music debacle: an "up and coming" exec who wants to make their mark by creating a new business line for Google that brings in big profits. They don't care if they sully the Google brand in the process because their incentives aren't aligned with Google's, any negative effects on Google's userbase (be they musicians, music consumers or just ordinary users of Google services) are just collateral damage in their internal political game.
There would have been many ways that integration could have occurred, so that executive direction isn't inherently the problem - it's more if there was no one to direct the nuances of doing then there's a problem.
That kind of nuanced understanding is the difference usually between successfully companies and their unsuccessful companies.
Executive culture tends to laud the "visionary leader" who pushes their vision on everyone else. When that vision is wrong-headed you end up with situations like the G+ débâcle: it was a failure of the Google executive, not the employees.
My guess is that we have the same effect in play with the YouTube Music debacle: an "up and coming" exec who wants to make their mark by creating a new business line for Google that brings in big profits. They don't care if they sully the Google brand in the process because their incentives aren't aligned with Google's, any negative effects on Google's userbase (be they musicians, music consumers or just ordinary users of Google services) are just collateral damage in their internal political game.
This is warring business units in action.