YouTube Red: Greedy Only at First Glace

Yesterday Google announced a new service related to YouTube and music, called YouTube Red. YouTube Red is $9.99/mo for no ads on YouTube videos across devices, background playback on mobile, and the ability to save videos for viewing offline. What most people who have issue with it think is that $9.99/mo is very steep for what you get. That's understandable, except Google is downplaying the fact that it comes with a subscription to Google Play Music.

Google Play Music is a Spotify and Apple Music competitor I wrote about in my post The Battle of Online Music Streaming. Previously, Google Play Music subscribers had no ads exclusively on verified music videos. Background playback was promised, but it wasn't ever stable. With the introduction of YouTube Red, this only adds more value to Google Play Music. Personally, because I am a Play Music subscriber, I will get YouTube Red for free when it launches. That's incredibly generous of Google to combine them.

Google also announced the launch of the YouTube Music app, which isn't exclusive to Red subscribers. It's basically a YouTube app which is optimized for music and background playback. If you don't have a Red subscription, however, you will see ads before videos and videos will not play in the background.

If you aren't interested in a music service such as Google Play Music, $9.99/mo is definitely too much. Google should have branded YouTube Red and Google Play Music closer together in order to signify what a great deal you're getting having them both, as well as offer the option to get YouTube Red exclusively for a cheaper price. When Google puts them in their own separate packages, you're really only seeing half the deal on each website. It's incredibly bad marketing, but really great for users if you know what a good deal looks like. Hopefully this is just another step into offering a theorized "Google Unlimited" service, which would give access to music, books, videos, and maybe even apps all through a monthly price. While Google hasn't shown plans to unite all of these under one roof, having Play Music and YouTube Red subscriptions mirror each-other shows promise. Here's to hoping in the future Google expands on what Spotify started, with the idea of unlimited entertainment.

Image source: YouTube