World’s Largest Video Streaming Platform, YouTube is gearing up to launch a revamped version of its new music service-and at the same time is getting ready to charge more to see original shows like “Karate Kid” spinoff.
To recap, about two years ago YouTube had launched an on-demand music service called YouTube Red which was more or less similar to Spotify or Apple Music. The service had removed ads while showcasing its content.
With the new YouTube Music, the focus on personalisation will continue but the service will come with some extra bells and whistles such as a personal playlist based on YouTube history and other usage patterns.
The service has been announced officially to soft launch on coming Tuesday and will cost $10 a month after a trial period. The much-awaited service will replace Google Play Music, a rival service inexplicably operated by Google at the time when it was trying to shake YouTube music off the ground.
Additionally, YouTube will now charge $2 more for the other parts of YouTube Red, which will now be called as YouTube Premium. This would simply mean that users will have to pay $12 a month, instead of $10 a month to access exclusive content such as “Cobra Kai”.
Why does this make sense?
YouTube has always thought of YouTube Red as a music subscription service, even though it never came out officially in public.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki even referred to YouTube Red as a music service at Recode’s Code Media conference in February, which seemed inadvertent at the time, but makes a lot more sense now.
While the Video streaming giant makes enormous money, it has never really diverted itself into spending on Netflix-like or Amazon-like sums on its original programming that showed up on YouTube Red.
But, now with “YouTube Music and Youtube Premium“, things will finally get easier for Google-owned platform to realise and streamline users who want to pay them for a Spotify-like music service, and who want to see YouTube originals and charge them accordingly.