Google appears to be nearing feature parity with YouTube Music as efforts to transition users from Play Music are reportedly coming close. Sources speaking to 9to5Google say you’ll soon be able to upload local music libraries to enable cloud-based access from anywhere.
The advantage, of course, is that you don’t have to be tied into any particular music platform. All those songs you bought standalone are just hosted on Google’s cloud and can be removed at any point to just use locally again. This is of particular help if you enjoy smaller artists or even podcasts that may not be listed.
9to5Google says this feature is in internal beta testing and previously found preparations in the YouTube Music app that suggest a rollout is close. The plan has long been to transition users to the new service eventually, and this should assuage one of the biggest reasons to delay the switch.
One source says Google Play Music users will be prompted to port their libraries over within the next few months and that the older service will close entirely in the second half of 2020.
Users, for the most part, seem to be fine with the transition, the lengthy wait period probably having a lot to do with it. There are some die-hard fans, of course, but generally having multiple music services on the go at once is worse for everyone.
Personally, I’ve given YouTube Music a spin and have found it to be pretty decent. I’m still not convinced that I need the music video feature, but I’m sure some see the use in it. The bundle price of $11.99 with YouTube Premium is also attractive, though its library of original content is still very lacking.
