A new YouTube Music streaming service is set to launch on May 22 for users to stream music at both free and premium price points.
The new service will allow users to stream music and videos in customized playlists with ads for free or without ads and with downloading capability for $9.99 a month through the YouTube platform, Newsweek reported. The service will be similar to Spotify and Apple Music.
YouTube has a billion users, far more than Spotify’s 170 million users and Apple Music’s 50 million, although it remains to be seen how many of those billion users will use the music streaming services.
The service also will dovetail with YouTube’s Red service, which contains original content and no ads for subscribers and has been available since 2015.
YouTube Red will now become YouTube Premium, and new users will pay $11.99 to access both original content on the platform and the music streaming, Newsweek reported. Current users of Google Play Music will be converted to YouTube Music and current users of YouTube Red will convert to YouTube Premium and will retain the $9.99 price point.
YouTube is owned by Google and the streaming service uses existing or new Google accounts for signup and access.
The initial launch will be in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea. CNBC reported. Other countries will launch the service in upcoming weeks.
Twitter users did not seem enthused about the changes.
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