Google Music was my go-to music streaming service, then they turned it into Youtube Red, then they changed it to Youtube Premium. So for me, I pay for a great music service, and I just happen to never see ads on youtube.
Same, there's more music than spotify and the max quality isn't too dissimilar and notably both max out above "CD quality", which is what 95%+ of albums are released at
Also the recommendation algorithm (IMO, as this is where it gets subjective) is far superior to any alternatives - it's actually a really good deal especially when you use it a lot - I've averaged 3.3h of music per day for the past 3 years, so I have no issues whatsoever paying for it
Back in the day I did a blind test between Google Music and Spotify and it wasn't even close. Google was significantly better. They also let me upload lossless files which is a great bonus.
Yeah, youtube music is great especially if you like remixes and new EDM/Electronic stuff since all of that launches on youtube before any where else. I'm setting up a playlist for someone who uses spotify and I'm using a syncing tool. A bunch of times some songs couldn't sync because they don't exist on Spotify, that alone is a deal breaker for me on spotify.
I switched from Spotify because their personalized mixes and radio stations stopped letting you thumbs down songs. I got sick of hearing the exact same crap on my mixes. And no matter how many times I fucking skipped it, my metal mix would always play Mother by Danzig early in the playlist. No matter what I actually listened to, my "personalized" mixes always had the same crap on it. Thumbs down a song on a mix or radio on YT Music? It goes away forever.
When I got married I joined my wife's Spotify family plan so I cancelled YouTube Red (it was around the time they were killing Google music)
After the first round of ads in YouTube I decided to keep my old subscription. They even let me keep my grandfathered plan since I only lapsed for a couple of day
Also I travel a lot and download videos to watch while on the plane and I believe that's a premium feature
Yeah, the people who had the music subscription are the winners in this situation since they get ad-free YT for just a fraction of the cost. If you were only subscribed to Premium to get rid of the ads, you now also have to pay the bundled music subscription you don't need, which sucks.
If you use a VPN to put your location in a less expensive country like India you can sign up for YT Premium at a significantly lower rate (like a dollar or two a month)
You'll need to use a credit card you haven't used with Google before and look up a legitimate address for that country to use as the billing address.
Once you've completed the sign-up you no longer need to use a VPN to fake your location and you can just use YT Premium as normal, but at a much cheaper price point