If you’ve ever wondered if you should sign up and pay for a YouTube Music subscription, the good news is that now you won’t have to if you own a Google Home device. This is because Google has announced that starting today, YouTube Music will be free for users who stream it through a Google Home speaker.
However, the catch is that this version of YouTube Music will be supported by ads. This means that if you listen to YouTube Music through its free tier, don’t be surprised if ads popup every now and then. What’s interesting about this is that just recently Amazon also announced a free ad-supported listening tier for Amazon Music.
Previously, these services were only available through a paid subscription (free trials do not count). We’re sure that this might have put some users off from subscribing to them, but as we said, if you own a Google Home speaker, you can now stream it for free if you don’t mind ads. At the moment, most music streaming services are paid-for, with the exception of Spotify which offered users a free listening tier, which we imagine probably helped them stay ahead of the competition.
There will be some limitations imposed on the free tier of YouTube Music, such as being able to pick and choose your songs on demand. Instead, those on the free tier can only request for a certain style or genre of music and hope that Google’s algorithms are smart enough to find something that they might like.
Filed in . Read more about Entertainment, Google, Google Home, Music, YouTube and YouTube Music. Source: engadget