With Apple launching its music streaming service on 30th June, Google wants to make sure that it spoils the music streaming party of Apple. Google today announced the launch of free tier which was only offering the paid subscription option to the users. While users can still upload 50,000 songs for listening it via Google Music for free, the on-demand streaming was still paid one under subscription. The free streaming is supported by ads which will offer the curated playlists. Google has recently acquired Songza and most of the playlists are already integrated in Google’s Music streaming service. Starting today, everyone in US will be able to listen to curated Playlists free on Web and soon this feature will be expanded to IOS and Android users too.
In US, Spotify also offers free tier option to the users apart from Google Music now. The only difference in Spotify is that the On-Demand music is free on Web, iPads and tablets, while for mobiles you don’t have any control on what music you will be listening to as it’s based on radio. In the case of Google Music, you don’t have any control on which music will play irrespective of its web, mobile or tablet. Google believes that consumers don’t really bother on which music to listen until and unless music is good and consumers believe in a lean back music experience.
While, Free has its own limitations when it comes to Google as free users will get ads, limited skips and also there won’t be offline download option for users. Free users have 6 skips per hour which is more of an industry norm now. One can pause the songs but can’t rewind or scrub through the songs. For people who pays the subscription fee will be able to get rid of ads, skip music unlimited times in radio and also songs can be downloaded to the device.
While Apple has mentioned that initial few months of music streaming + download will be free, time will only tell on how music streaming services will be taken by customers if it’s a paid commodity.
