YouTube Music & Premium claim 50 million total users

"We've got killer products in YouTube Music and YouTube Premium that deliver truly unique value to artists and creators and the best experience for music fans and video lovers," Lyon Cohen, Global Head of Music at Google, revealed. "We're in our own lane — there's no other place where fans can get uninterrupted access to the largest and most diverse catalogue of music, artists and culture."

But what is YouTube Music and how does it differ from YouTube Premium? YouTube Music is a fork of YouTube that initially only showed music videos, but in the wake of Google Play Music's demise became a full-fledged music streaming platform that not only allows you to listen to any song ever uploaded on YouTube, but also upload your own tracks. It costs $9.99 per month and is a standalone app and has no ads.

Meanwhile, YouTube Premium gives you full access to YouTube Music, background play of regular YouTube videos, as well as ad-free experience throughout the whole of YouTube.

While Google Play Music's nixing made multiple users migrate to competing music services, namely Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music, Google argues that YouTube remains the most convenient platform to listen to a track, view its music video, and interact with other, similarly minded fans of the artist. "No other platform facilitates this level of depth and exploration for music fans," as per Cohen.

While we don't have official subscription numbers for Apple Music, unofficial rumored stats put Cupertino's service at around 72 million paying subscribers as of late 2020, which means that YouTube has some catching up to do. Aware of this, the YouTube head honchos are aware of this claiming "we're not taking our foot off the gas" and promising new benefits for the music streaming services.