YouTube vs YouTube Music vs Premium | All you need to know

This post is not only for video lovers but also for those who like to listen to audio, but the main problem is about choosing the best source.

It is early to comment about YTM but after using it for more than a month, I think very much can be told about it. To start with when I first logged in to YouTube Music with my Gmail ID, I found some of the songs of my preference getting listed on the Home screen. There was no list of the mix as I used to have in my YouTube home page. What I did to test the recommendation was to play “Girls like you by Maroon 5,” and the next song which played was “Thunder by Imagine Dragons,” and yes it was among my preferences. This means that my preferences were getting imported from YouTube but not all. After I let the songs play for around 3-4 hours, next time I opened YTM I was getting “Your Mixtape” option on my YTM homepage. The UI is good and is similar to that of Spotify with a black background and white text. For the starting day, I felt the absence of categorization based on the genre which I used to find when I was using Google Play Music but as the days went categorized recommendation and playlists kept on showing up. Inter-device support is there with a separate app and desktop version being available on music.youtube.com which makes it convenient to use, but if you are looking to import all your data from Google Play Music to YouTube Music, then you need to wait for a while as the Google team is currently working on that.

Well YouTube is for video and YTM is for music then why do we have YouTube Music premium?

The answer is simple; it is for both with some enhanced features like:

Ad-free streaming ( Audio )
Background Streaming ( You can play your mixes even with a locked screen)
Download feature to listen on the go.
Some original Music tracks are available only for premium users.
Higher Audio Quality

It is a renamed version of YouTube Red providing ad-free, offline and background access to YouTube. YouTube Premium Subscription contains ad-free YouTube with YouTube Music Premium and access to YouTube Originals.

Now that was just a brief, let’s try to get some questions related to YouTube Music which needs to be answered especially for a new user.

YouTube, as we all know, is all about video, YouTube Music is also YouTube with the only difference of having different playlists, and YouTube Music premium is the one in which you get access to audio files, so that background play becomes accessible. (the Basic thing is that you only get full access to YouTube Music only when you become a premium subscriber)
They have different playlists.
With YouTube, you can watch a video, with YouTube Music you can watch or listen to Music video of a song but with premium, you get access to Video Music, Audio-only mode of the video and if available, then also of the original audio file of the song. ( Some audio tracks are only available for the premium users as per the authority of the artists and their labels)
YouTube and YTM are with ads, but the premium is ad-free.
Only with premium, you get the access to download all songs which is not the case with YouTube as it doesn’t allow you to download all videos.
Background play, the reason why I thought of installing YouTube Music is available only with a Premium

It’s simple to say about YouTube as it holds the 2nd position according to Alexa rankings, that no doubt it is the best video-hosting service available to us. The UI is great with comments, descriptions, navigation, and search just at fingertips and through its algorithm gulping so much of data, recommendation and personalized blocks are great. Sometimes what you need is to play a song of your choice at random and what follows next will make your mood, and the very next time you want a repeat, YouTube will be ready with a mix tab just for you. The service is available on all platforms, be it desktop, mobile or via app and with your login info, your preferences remain synced.

All the recommendations are based on the Google algorithm to provide you with the best & as per the words of a Product Manager from Google… “The more you listen to it and thumbs it up, the better we get at learning.”

Yes, you can add someone else’s playlist to your library, and the playlists can be shared with others (subscribers as well as non-subscriber). You can even search for the user-created playlist.

It is a renamed version of YouTube Red providing ad-free, offline and background access to YouTube. YouTube Premium Subscription contains ad-free YouTube with YouTube Music Premium and access to YouTube Originals.

Now that was just a brief, let’s try to get some questions related to YouTube Music which needs to be answered especially for a new user.