The one YouTube Music feature that finally made me cancel Spotify
I paid for Spotify. I paid for Amazon Music. On top of that, I already pay for YouTube Premium, mainly to get rid of ads and keep YouTube usable. For a long time, YouTube Music was just part of the package. I didn’t really consider it a serious competitor, and I certainly didn’t expect it to replace a service I had willingly paid for.
That changed once I spent some time with it. The moment I realized YouTube Music would allow me to upload my own music collection, everything clicked. It stopped feeling like just another streaming app and started feeling like a complete music library, mixing what I already own with what I want to discover. This one feature alone made it difficult to justify paying for anything else.
YouTube Music’s library looks bigger because it has fewer gaps
When people talk about streaming libraries, they’re usually talking about raw song counts. On paper, YouTube Music and Spotify look similar. Both announce catalogs of more than 100 million titles. In practice, they don’t feel the same way at all.
Spotify’s library is limited to officially licensed releases, meaning that if an artist has never uploaded a release, remix, or live cut, they might as well not exist. YouTube Music draws on that same pool of official releases, but it also taps into the broader YouTube ecosystem, where live performances, rare edits, regional releases, covers, and one-off uploads live.
This difference matters more than I expected. When I search for a song on YouTube Music, I don’t just hope that the album version is there. I’m usually looking for a specific version, a live take, a radio edit, or something that disappeared years ago. More often than not, YouTube Music offers something where Spotify is empty. Even when both services technically have the same number of tracks, YouTube Music feels like it has fewer spaces, making the library feel bigger in a way that matters when you’re listening.
An app for albums, live shows and music videos
What really sets YouTube Music apart from Spotify isn’t just the number of tracks, it’s the way video and audio sit side by side without feeling like two different apps. On Spotify, if I want to watch a live performance or official music video, I either have to open another app or settle for a static album cover and press “play” again. YouTube Music seems like the logical evolution of a streaming service, because the video is part of the experience and not an afterthought. I can listen to an album, switch to the official video, and have it blend right into the audio-only stream. This seamless exchange between audio and video means I experience more of the artist’s work in a natural and fun way.
And it changes the way I listen, especially for content that thrives on visuals like live shows, dance floors and everything in between. Instead of bookmarking a video on one platform and a track on another, YouTube Music lets me create playlists that mix the two without interrupting the flow. It’s strange how much of a difference it makes until you’ve lived there for a while, but once you do, going back to Spotify’s static player is like walking into an old-fashioned jukebox instead of a living, breathing music ecosystem.
What is YouTube Music Supermix and how do you use it?
Mix all your music into one playlist.
Why YouTube Music recommendations work better for me
I can’t fully explain why YouTube Music’s recommendations work better for me, but they do. I find myself skipping fewer songs and letting playlists play more often. With Spotify, the suggestions never seemed wrong, but they seemed predictable, as if the service relied a little too much on familiar artists and safe choices. Over time, this allowed me to be more aware of the algorithm, which took me out of my flow.
YouTube Music looks more natural in comparison. The suggestions are closer to what I actually want, whether it’s deeper album tracks, live versions, or similar artists that make sense without seeming obvious. I don’t know what cues it uses behind the scenes, but whatever the priority, it fits better with the way I listen, and it makes the whole experience better for me.
Clean up your YouTube Music app with these features
Change the look of your library.
Integrate my own library into YouTube Music
This is the feature that ultimately sealed it for me. I ripped all of my CDs years ago, from the 90s, 2000s and beyond, and this collection has followed me from hard drive to hard drive ever since. With YouTube Music, I can upload up to 100,000 of my own songs and stream them live alongside albums and streaming playlists. All my rare releases, forgotten B-sides, live recordings, and versions that never made it to Spotify are finally part of the same library I use every day. I no longer juggle local files, separate applications, or half-remembered folders. Everything is in one place.
What really surprised me was how complete the whole ecosystem seems once your own music is included in it. My uploads sit alongside official releases, mix with playlists, and exist in the same space as music videos and live performances. I no longer feel like I’m renting access to a catalog and I’m starting to feel like a real music library again, one that mixes what I already own with what I want to discover next. For someone who’s been building a collection for decades, that means a lot, and it’s the main reason why YouTube Music finally won me over.
Canceling Spotify wasn’t about finding a new app or saving a few dollars, it was about finding a service that better suited the way I listen to music. YouTube Music won me over by feeling less restrictive and more complete. For about two dollars more per month than Spotify, YouTube Premium also gives me ad-free YouTube, which I was already paying for anyway.
Once everything I cared about lived in one place: albums, live performances, videos, and my personal collection, paying for a separate streaming service no longer made sense.
- Subscription with advertisements
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No, everything is ad-free
- Live TV
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No
