Let’s start off by saying one thing, Youtube, and Google, are businesses. A business’ goal is strictly to make money, that is the only goal, anything else is merely a solution to a problem that rises from the question of “How do we make more money?”
There is no real other question in the world of business that matters, only solutions, and this brings up the subscription feature that YouTube is looking to launch.
The subscription feature is expected to cost in the range of $10 and cover two services. The first service is YouTube’s recently beta launched YouTube Music Key, and the second is an ad-free viewing experience for YouTube itself.
Upfront this looks pretty tame, pretty expected in all honesty, but there are some underlying issues that many probably don’t realize.
For starters, why would anyone pay YouTube for music? According to the Music Key home page, you’ll probably have an ad-free version, music will keep playing in the background on your phone, you won’t need an internet connection as the new app will most likely download them on your first listen, and you will have access to Google Play Music.
Right away, we can’t tell what all is going to be part of the subscription, or if the subscription alone is what you need to access it, but let us just talk about that first little bit, the ad-free part.
Pandora, internet radio which provides music free of charge with the occasional advertisement, is just like any real radio, but if you pay a subscription you get unlimited song skips and ad-free listening. Best part is, it only costs $4.99 a month.
Beyond Pandora is a nifty site called Spotify. Much like Pandora, you can browse music, play it, and occasionally listen to an ad. Spotify’s subscription cost is right on up there in the $10 market, you get the standard ad-free listening, BUT you also get the ability to listen to the tracks offline!
So between Pandora and Spotify alone, both of which have been on the market for a while now, why would anyone switch to YouTube Music Key? Furthermore, what about places like the iTunes music store where you can buy a song for $.99 and keep it for life without fear of losing it because you ran out of subscription time?
Enough about YouTube Music Key though, it only happens to be half of the value that you will get out of the monthly subscription that they are asking for. The other half comes in the form of supposedly ad-free viewing when watching Youtube videos.
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SOURCE: Michael Young
ModVive
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