YouTube to 'Frustrate and Seduce' You Into Paying for Music

When it comes to music, YouTube is feeling the pressure on all sides. The music industry wants more money for its content, there's growing competition from dedicated music services such as Spotify and Apple Music, and then there's consumers, who just want to watch and listen with as few ads as possible.

As Bloomberg reports, if you're a heavy user of YouTube for music, you're now a target. We are expecting a YouTube Music Service to launch this year, and the video streaming site wants people paying a subscription. YouTube's first tactic to entice users to sign up is more ads! YouTube believes more advertising is a good way to convince you to subscribe so as to remove frustration. Really, YouTube?

According to Lyor Cohen, YouTube's global head of music, YouTube is already making $10 billion a year mainly from advertising. Music subscriptions are expected to add significantly to that while at the same time silencing the "noise" coming from the music industry and the claimed harm YouTube does.

Cohen's tactic is to "frustrate and seduce" YouTube users into subscribing, and it could easily backfire. But we shouldn't have to wait much longer to find if it does. The subscription service is already being used by thousands of Google employees, with the seduction part of the offer including exclusive videos, playlists, and "other offerings that will appeal to die-hard music fans." Another big part of the seduction will be price. Is YouTube going to undercut the competition?

Expect a lot of money to be spent in the coming months on a big marketing campaign pushing YouTube music subscriptions.

Let's block ads! (Why?)