https://mike.fm/2018/05/17/youtube-music-is.html (mike.fm)

YouTube Music Is Google’s Brand New Spotify Killer →
I think it’s safe to say that this is the beginning of the end for Google Play Music. It’s a shame because I always really liked the Songza integration, the Material Design look of it, and I’ve never been a heavy YouTube user.

@mikedotfm I will miss being able to upload music along side the streaming library, but I guess that is what a Plex server is for

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thanks google for once again finding the top story for me

fire engine sound

ok google never talk to me or my son again

the sadness will last forever

happy spring, from Google Assistant

Been making the same commute for 4 years. Today, Google thinks I went to work in China. Made it in about 40 minutes

I love the contextual reminders, Google Inbox, but they are getting pretty dark

It is the DMZ week between the two major developer conferences of the year, I/O and Appple’s WWDC. Shots were fired by Google in the form of free and unlimited photo storage and an omnipresent search assistant for its upcoming OS update. fans have already begun reflexively asserting that “Google ain’t no thing”:

Everything has a price. With Apple, you typically pay them money, and they sell you premium products and services in return. That type of cost and relationship is easy to understand.
With Google, you typically pay them attention and data, and they give you free or cheap products and services in return. That cost and relationship is harder to understand.

First of all, no, it is not hard to understand. For decades if not longer, services have used advertising to mitigate cost to the user. Ever listened to a radio, or read a newspaper, or received junk mail?

Second (and more nitpicky), you would be hard pressed to find anyone else making the argument for Apple offering users more choice. I am running a custom launcher, a third-party SMS client, and readily switch between three different browsers depending on my use cases. Ever tried that on iOS? /android-troll

Apple CEO Tim Cook even joined in:

“We believe the customer should be in control of their own information. You might like these so-called free services, but we don’t think they’re worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. And we think some day, customers will see this for what it is.”

The first takeaway from this is that the Apple camp is placing a priority on while at the same time knocking “so-called free services” down a peg. This implies that privacy is only available to those who can afford it. This sentiment is much larger moral hazard than allowing tailored advertising to subsidize service.

The most important takeaway, however, is that this sentiment could turn into Apple’s Waterloo if they don’t make some major improvements to their services. Google Photos has long been superior to iPhoto, only to be hamstrung by its dependence on Google’s misunderstood social network. Google solved that problem this year by separating them. Apple needs to give people a reason to pay out the nose for their competing product besides “hey, we won’t check out your pictures.”

Google offers value in exchange for information, which is why they are seen as a pinnacle of innovation. Apple offers value in exchange for cold hard cash, which is why they are seen as a walled garden surrounding a mountain of cash. Hopefully Apple’s private #cloud will open up and rain some new ideas on WWDC this year, instead of nude photos of celebrities. /terrible-apple-troll-pun