[tlynchpin]

I've been a subscriber to Google Play Music for a few years, initially I think my choice rested on being able to upload from my personal library, which was more significant back in the days when there was much less parity in music service catalogs - this was circa no Beatles. Then they added the youtube tie in where you don't get youtube ads - very valuable. I agree with the general UI complaint, it isn't great. To add to the crit, the branding is weak - 'Spotify' is meaningful, 'Play' is not. Despite all that, I've decided $100/yr for music on demand and no youtube ads is a good deal for me.

I tried Spotify a couple years ago and the experience was terrible and I haven't been back. I don't recall exactly: there was tons of hype, I had to download and run an installer, then create an account and validate email, and then I could play a song, so I picked a song and got some audio ads and subsequent more ads and suggested songs that were not at all related to the song I picked. It wasn't just not good enough to get me to switch, the onboarding was repellent.

I probably won't be their customer but I'm happy to see them succeed for a variety of reasons: customers love it, they aren't FAMGA, and that slide deck on their organizational squads and tribes [1] was significant in my work life.

[1]: https://blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile...