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Comment by penciltwirler | Hacker News Reader

What's everyone's opinion on youtube music? You pay $11.99/month for YouTube Premium, you get both ad-free youtube (important on mobile), as well as music. Whereas Spotify is $9.99/month, but you only get music and podcasts. Granted Spotify has a much bigger library.

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I do this. While YouTube Music is just okay, the issue with paying for ad-free YouTube videos is more content creators are doing sponsored videos. So, the majority of YouTube's videos are laden with these sponsored ads and this severely degrades the ad-free experience.

Spotify has a much bigger library than YouTube Music? Hmm... Much as I love Spotify, it's always been at a disadvantage. The way I see it: on YouTube, content is "available by default" due to Content ID and the DMCA safe harbor, whereas on Spotify, content is "unavailable by default."

I obviously understand the principal of being frugal for the sake of being frugal regardless of how much money you have, but the average HackerNews frequent user has to have an income between $100k-$500k/yr or a net worth of $500k-$2.5m, right?

At that level, does $50/mo vs $150/mo in paid subscriptions register as a blip on the radar?

I say that as somebody who has Hulu, YouTube Premium, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Spotify, Netflix, Peacock, SiriusXM, HBO max, Roku CBS, ESPN+, Roku Discovery (and that's just what I could find jotted down from a statement)

I just don't comprehend the idea of "tweaking" something that's $100/yr. Obviously less fortunate people need to. But then how many of them tweak their $100/yr subscriptions and immediately go to Starbucks for a $7 drink right after?

If you can save $100/yr then why not but I agree all these penny pinching efforts are usually nothing but noise.

All those gains will easily be lost if you book your plane tickets two days late and have to pay $200 more.

Fwiw, android+firefox+ublock origin works great for no ads on YouTube.

You're hurting the creator just as much as you are YouTube. At least when you pay for Premium, some of that money goes to the creator of the video, and they get more than they would have done had you watched the video with ads.

Sure if you want the awful UX of a browser

I used Google Music from it launched until when it was shut down. Then I decided that I'd rather use a service where music streaming was their main business model and not just a side project or hobby that could get shut down at any point. So I left Google and switched to Spotify.

I also have issues with Apple music competing with other services while Apple owns not just the platform but also forces its competitors to use them for distribution and payment, but that's a separate issue.

How does Apple “force” competitors to use them for payments when Spotify hasn’t had an in app purchase option for years?

Same here. When Google Music was finally sunsetted, I switched to Spotify. I actually ended up keeping both subscriptions. YouTube premium and Spotify.

I loath any kind of ads.

I use YouTube music and so far so good. For me there hasn't been a song I liked that was on Sporify but not on YT.

I watch a lot of yt and ad removal is worth my time. In fact their price used to be $9.99 and I found it surprising people would subscribe to any other service.

The only other service that piques my interest is Apple Music with Dolby Atmos but I still prefer yt ad removal over Dolby Atmos given the fact that you need a compatible speaker and music for it to work

"Granted Spotify has a much bigger library" - i dont think this is true.

I do the family plan and youtube ad free is the best, i do my music discovery via youtube and youtube music does an okay job.

Ad free until you start watching the videos.

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