I've been using play music since it came out and I pay for youtube red or w,e it's currently branded. I can't deny that the reason I chose it is still valid: I can upload my music and stream it. I have obscure stuff that is not in any licensed streaming service and it's nice to be able to pull it up on any computer.
However, there are many severe issues.
* It crashes every single time the app is closed in iOS.
* The ability to edit metadata is missing in iOS.
* iOS integration is missing features that are present in apple music and spotify, such as appearing as a music player in all contexts relevant to the OS.
* Duplicate tracks show up everywhere.
* Playlists often do not update when changes are made to them.
* Playlists sometimes just go missing for a while.
* The web browser interface gets out of sync often.
* It is not clear when tracks are ones in your library or from google's licensed library.
* Uploaded tracks are often deduplicated without warning or notice, resulting in lightly modified tracks and rare releases to be replaced with licensed versions.
* Sometimes I cannot get things to upload without trying a dozen times across multiple days.
This is par for google and it is bar none the the worst software I choose to use.
Sadly it’s my understanding that they plan to shut down google play music completely in favor of YouTube music at some point this year (at least according to a friend-of-a-friend who works on it). It’s already quite buggy and frustrating, but I still use it mainly because I am on the grandfathered $8/month plan and also get ad-free YouTube included.
That being said I went through my Google Play billing recently and realized I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Google Play Music over the years. I don’t think I’ve listened to that much money’s worth of music considering the songs are about a dollar each to buy and I don’t add that many new songs every year.
Someone should build a tool that scans your streaming library on Google Play Music/Apple Music/Spotify or whatever and adds all of those tracks to an Amazon MP3 shopping cart to help you transition off the recurring service. I wouldn’t be surprised if something exists that does something similar using torrents.
Maybe it’s better now. But for years basic playlist functionality on google music was buggy for me (randomly reordering songs and some other issues I have forgotten). Also no Linux app. Finally swapped to Spotify and never looked back. But I really miss being able to upload my old music.
It’s been many years since I’ve used Spotify but I remember they had the ability to add your own custom music to your library. Is that no longer the case?
I assume you're using it on Android and not on iOS. The Android client was actually really lovely from a UX perspective, even if I had some complaints about general functionality GPM was missing. When I switched to iOS this past year I immediately ditched GPM for Spotify because the interface was unintuitive and clunky and I haven't looked back.
However, there are many severe issues.
* It crashes every single time the app is closed in iOS.
* The ability to edit metadata is missing in iOS.
* iOS integration is missing features that are present in apple music and spotify, such as appearing as a music player in all contexts relevant to the OS.
* Duplicate tracks show up everywhere.
* Playlists often do not update when changes are made to them.
* Playlists sometimes just go missing for a while.
* The web browser interface gets out of sync often.
* It is not clear when tracks are ones in your library or from google's licensed library.
* Uploaded tracks are often deduplicated without warning or notice, resulting in lightly modified tracks and rare releases to be replaced with licensed versions.
* Sometimes I cannot get things to upload without trying a dozen times across multiple days.
This is par for google and it is bar none the the worst software I choose to use.