After months of delay, YouTube has finally entered the music subscription arena with a new service called YouTube Music Key. Music Key will allow subscribers to do what they’ve already been doing on YouTube, namely listening to music, with some added bonuses. Music videos will be available with ad-free playback, background playback, and offline viewing on Android and iOS. Keep in mind that not every video will be available with no ads, just the ones hosted by major labels.
The service will be offered for a monthly subscription price of $7.99 when it leaves beta, and will also include a subscription to Google’s existing music streaming service, Google Play Music. Presumably, current Google Play Music subscribers will also get Music Key for free. It’s unclear at this time whether Google will be lowering Play Music’s $10 monthly subscription fee to match Music Key’s, though it would be really weird if they didn’t.
Music Key is in an invite-only beta right now, which allows free access for six months, though anyone who signs up for Google Play Music will have access to the beta immediately. It will be available in the US and six European countries at launch.
YouTube has been the most popular destination for online music-listening for quite some time now, mostly because it’s free and convenient. Although the features added in Music Key have been at the top of YouTube users’ wish lists for years now, they may not be enough to convince people to pay a monthly fee. Most savvy users have AdBlock installed to counter the annoyance of 30-second ads before every video, and there are certainly ways to download videos to your device.
Other than making the already-possible more convenient (and legal), the only truly new feature Music Key offers is playing music in the background, not having to keep the video open. The fact that Music Key beats out its competitors’ monthly prices by $2 will be compelling for many users, but some ad-free music videos may not be enough to pull in Spotify customers. With both TIDAL and YouTube putting music videos on offer as part of the service, this does put more pressure on Spotify to offer them in their service. Depending on how well it does, it may also put pressure on Spotify to lower their monthly subscription price.
If ads on YouTube truly annoy you that much, or you were simply waiting for Google Play Music to get a bit cheaper, the announcement of YouTube Music Key is certainly good news. If you were already a Google Play Music subscriber, this is simply more value added for less money, which is great. Depending on how well Music Key does, we may see competitors in the space (i.e. Spotify) begin to either lower their price of admission, add more features to their service, or both. Certainly, the popularity of the service will say something about whether people still care about music videos in this day and age.
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