I know YouTube Music is flawed, yet I prefer it over Spotify

YouTube is that one music streaming service you either absolutely abhor or love so much that you are ready to defend it. I probably fall into the latter category because I frequently get to try a lot of its alternatives, including popular ones like Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Still, I keep coming back to YouTube Music every single time. And there is just one reason for it that trumps every other argument against the service.

There is no denying that YouTube Music is far from being the most perfect music streaming service ever. I can agree with my colleague Rita on this. Spotify is Spotify — it does so many things so well that it makes me envy it.

Google feels allergic to making native apps, especially for desktops, and that’s true for YouTube Music. I have resorted to alternative methods of using the YouTube Music web app using Flotato on my Mac so that I can stream music when I’m working. Still, without a native solution, I can’t download my music offline. Spotify, on the other hand, is way ahead on this. Let alone desktops, it has native integrations for an insane variety of platforms, including gaming consoles, speakers, and even cars.

Spotify now even has lossless music along the lines of Apple Music, which YouTube Music doesn’t even have a plan for right now. There are half a dozen more things that YouTube doesn’t get right, but its rivals do. Spotify Connect is the most in-your-face example of this, letting you control your music playing on any device from whatever screen is closest to you. YouTube Music, despite Google owning a lot of the platforms it runs on, like Google TV, Home speakers, and Google Cast, is nowhere close to matching the sheer convenience of Spotify Connect.

I would kill to have these features on YouTube Music — yet they aren’t enough for me to ignore the biggest strength of YouTube Music and dump it.

All the connected tech, social features, and app availability mean nothing when it doesn’t have, well, music. You have often heard people boast about YouTube Music hosting tons and tons of unofficial songs along the lines of SoundCloud, and that’s indeed very true. But this is less about why YouTube Music is more tempting and more about why I decided to give up on Spotify.

I was exclusively using Spotify for a good year or two some time ago. During that period, I frequently noticed that the songs I wanted to listen to weren’t available and were greyed out. From all the songs in my library, these unavailable tags would cycle through. Spotify was facing a lot of licensing issues that led it to cyclically drop a lot of my favorite music from its roster. It was frequent and frustrating enough that I was convinced to look elsewhere.

YouTube Music wasn’t the fanciest alternative, neither back in the day nor now, but the one thing that it got right — the one thing that matters the most — was that it had all the music I wanted to listen to and then some. It is true that the gold mine that YouTube is, with its plethora of random jam sessions and indie finds, truly enriches the music experience on YouTube Music because of this cross-compatibility. It multiplies the YouTube Music catalog manyfold for me to savor not only mainstream pop culture but also some of the underground music that I wouldn’t otherwise even know existed if I were on Apple Music or Spotify.

For me personally, accessibility to good music matters more than flashy features, which are nothing more than supporting actors. They are of no use to me if the music itself isn’t good or is unavailable (that’s still often the case on Spotify). I would every day choose an abundance of music over ornamental tricks, and that’s the reason I’m with YouTube Music despite knowing all its flaws.

While we stress a bit too much on how Spotify and others offer a better bundle of features than YouTube Music, I’d also like to point out that YTM has unmatched merits beyond its massive catalog, too. Perhaps one of the least talked-about features is its cloud upload option, where you can save your local audio files to the cloud and stream them from any device. On top of that, YouTube Music is perhaps one of the most economical music streaming apps around, mostly because it comes bundled with your YouTube Premium subscription, which everyone should get anyway to avoid those lots of ads.

The very point of multiple options existing — not just in music streaming apps but anywhere — is for you to pick whatever closely matches your needs, likes, and dislikes. No product is perfect, and that is the reason we continue to indulge in the futile Android vs. iPhone debate. Yes, Android has its strengths, but so does the iPhone. Picking one over the other doesn’t make you better or worse off than everybody else, and it surely doesn’t dictate the choice for everyone.

In the same vein, Spotify has a different personality altogether, offering a more open alternative to the closed-off ecosystem of Apple Music, with all its multiplatform availability and social interplay. If that’s something you prioritize, then Spotify is your app without a doubt. If you’re drawn to the aesthetics and deep integration within the Apple ecosystem, then Apple Music is what you should subscribe to, especially if your friends and family also have it.

For someone like me who is keen on discovering those unheard, low-quality, old-school music videos and wants to keep this joy of discoverability alive, YouTube Music makes the most sense of them all. These strengths of YouTube Music far outweigh its weaknesses for me.

And if by any chance you are indecisive, nobody is stopping you from using two (or more) music streaming apps. YouTube Music is anyway bundled with YouTube Premium, so you could enjoy the massive catalog while paying separately for Spotify for its community features, social sharing, or wider platform availability.

If you think maintaining playlists on both platforms would be difficult, some services let you sync your playlists across platforms. That’s an additional investment, sure, but the all-round experience could be worth it if it really means that much to you — to each their own.