yt music > spotify

posted on July 6, 2024

ive started using streaming services pretty recently, about two years ago. i’ve always liked the idea of a local music library, since it’s always there, and it’s… free.

the first one I tried was spotify; at the time yt music wasn’t really a thing. i didn’t have any complaints; it worked fine, and it had a seemingly endless catalog.

around 2023, when youtube started cracking down on advertisers, i decided to try youtube premium for a month (yeah, i know, im a piece of shit) and since youtube music was bundled with it, i also gave it a try.

since then i cancelled my spotify sub, since yt music seems like the obvious winner. here’s the basic logic behind my personal decision:

yt music has a vastly superior catalog of music i care about (slowed+reverb; many anime OST; obscure music) that spotify does NOT have
yt music also has ad-free youtube, on desktop and mobile.
the two are fairly comparable with anything else (audio quality, ui/ux, pricing)
result: yt music is the better value compared to spotify

this logic is kind of a zero-sum game, since i don’t wanna pay for both subs.

as for both companies, i loathe both google and spotify, but i probably hate google way more. it’s just.. the stereotypical evil multinational org, unironically. and they definitely don’t care about their customers.

spotify seems rather more customer-friendly, but also fucks over the artists a lot.

audio quality

tl;dr: i dont care.

for listening I usually use a pair of sennheiser hd560s, which from an audiophile pov they’re probably kinda shitty. overall I don’t give a damn about audio quality unless it’s extremely bad. from superficial analysis both services seen to have the same perceivable audio quality.

library

tl;dr: youtube wins. not even a fair contest.

i mean, it’s not a fair comparison when youtube music can access the entire youtube catalog.

yt music has all kinds of user made versions (e.g. slowed+reverb, etc)
yt music has heaps of shit, especially obscure or non-official releases (it pulls from youtube, duh)

ui/ux

tl;dr: spotify wins.

the webpage (so, for desktop) for yt music is absolutely garbage. it looks bad, feels bad, and lacks many features the mobile app has (e.g. interactive lyrics)

the mobile yt music app (android) is pretty good. it feels good, has good features, and looks good. it integrates with many nice android features, like being able to like/navigate via the drawer. would use again.

the spotify desktop and mobile experience are both really good. it just feels… better to use. youtube lags extremely behind them.

pricing

tl;dr: youtube premium is the better value, but is more expensive.

as of today, yt music is bundled with yt premium. which means you also get no ads on youtube, which is a plus if you use it a lot. sure, you can get ublock on desktop and revanced on mobile, but… it kinda sucks when it stops working. which, it did several times on both platforms, and i HATE being locked out.

here’s the current pricing as of jul 6 ’24 in italy. i’m single and live alone, so cant use the duo/family bundles.

yt premium: 11.99€
- they’ll raise prices in the near future, question is when.
spotify premium: 10.99€
- spotify will very often offer you 3 months for the price of 1 when you unsub; youtube never does that.

thank you for coming to my ted-talk.