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An issue on my mind recently has been getting the most value out of the streaming platform I use for music. Between Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Premium as the "Big 3," in my opinion, I've been wrestling with potentially switching away from Spotify due to the compelling features of YouTube. I've only ever had a premium subscription to Spotify in my life, and that has satisfied my needs for the past decade. However, as I broaden my horizons in terms of the kinds of content I value and consume on a day-to-day basis, it may be time to reconsider.
The argument for Spotify premium
The biggest element in favor of Spotify Premium for me right now is their student discount offer. This discount lets students confirm their enrollment in college and discounts the premium subscription price to $5.99 per month for up to 4 years, with the addition of Hulu. I am now in my fourth year of college, so I'm sure you can see the problem here. My discount expires on August 1st of this year, at which point I'll have to either cancel my premium benefits or cough up $11.99 per month. I really like the features Spotify has on their platform, such as friend activity, curated playlists, notifications about artists' tours and merchandise, cross-application integration with widgets, and more. I also think Spotify's UI, while definitely not perfect, is a bit more streamlined than other platforms. Despite this, another platform has caught my eye recently.
Pros: Student subscription price, familiarity with UI, friend activity feature, curated playlists.
Cons: Only includes music, student discount expiring soon.
The argument for YouTube premium
YouTube Premium is ultimately the reason I'm writing this post. One thing about me is that I'm an avid YouTube watcher. There are a few shows I watch on streaming platforms, but most of my entertainment comes from YouTube. I love video essays, gaming videos, and user-made content. So, when I learned that YouTube Premium includes music and all other YouTube videos ad-free, I knew I had to reconsider my choice of streaming platform. YouTube Premium also offers a student discount of $7.99 per month, which I think is very fair given the wide breadth of content it includes. Also, don't snitch... but I think that even though I'm in my fourth year of college if I sign up and prove enrollment, the discount will be valid for the next four years even after I graduate.
Being able to watch YouTube ad-free is a great feature, however I almost exclusively watch YouTube on my laptop on which I use an ad-blocker anyways. So, this isn't my biggest concern.
The biggest factor when considering YouTube premium for my music is all the unreleased music that fans upload to YouTube but cannot upload to other DSPs like Spotify, and video game soundtracks. The workaround for this on Spotify is using the local files function to upload mp3s, however it does not sync across devices since the files are local to the device you're using, so it's a bit tricky to get a consistent experience.
On the business side of things, YouTube music pays out $0.008 per stream in royalties, which may not seem like much but makes a big difference when compared to Spotify which pays between $0.003 and $0.005 cents per stream in royalties.
Pros: Premium subscription includes all content on YouTube that I watch very frequently, can access student subscription plan for another 4 years, access to unreleased tracks, demos, remixes, and more that are not available on other DSPs, and higher royalty rate to artists.
Cons: Less comfortable with UI, less access to curated content, unsure how the "ecosystem" functions between phone, laptop, and TV.
Closing thoughts
I've been a Spotify loyalist since 2015, and even though I love the friend activity, curated playlists, and cross-platform integration, I might seriously consider YouTube Premium once my student discount subscription expires on Spotify. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to start using the free version of YouTube music to get a feel for it and test if I would enjoy switching over eventually. Overall, the aspects of Spotify that I like, unfortunately, do not completely outweigh the features of YouTube Premium that are important to me right now. Spotify is very familiar to me and I'm comfortable using it, however it's possible that what YouTube Premium has to offer may become a better fit for me. In the worst-case scenario, I can always switch back!
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