I’m cleaning out my gmail folders this weekend, and went deep into the archive to 2011, when I got my invite to Google Music.
It’s funny, because I just (November) moved all of my music out of cloud and back to local-only. Amazon was the last straw, when I tried to play purchased music, and was forced to listen to it on shuffle with other songs not of my choosing.
Anyway… there was a time when Google (ahem, Youtube) Music was set to be a game-changer. Imagine if enshittification wasn’t a thing.
I’ll die on the hill that GPM was and still is the best music service I ever used. I don’t think I ever had a single recommendation that wasn’t on point for me. The service worked flawless and the app was easy to use. When we got the notice our hearts sank. Spotify doesn’t even compare .
Remember when the Intenet made you optimistic? That’s why I think these posts gut me so much. Because it doesn’t do that anymore.
Anyway off to continue doom scrolling.
“The internet will bring us all together! It will democratize truth and information!” Was the manta of the 2000s.
20 years later and the exact opposite happened.
Man GPM was the jam… found so many new artists with that service. I was an early adopter and gladly paid my monthly fee.
And then YouTube music happened… the bastards.
I rolled my own Plex server and am on plexamp for music now.
I’ll never go back to streaming.
25K tracks on my Plex server, and Plexamp is the best music player I’ve ever used. Having started with WinAmp, I’ve been through quite a few.
It’s right choice from google to discontinued google music because they already have YouTube, so…in the end it kinda redundant to have separate platform IMO
