YouTube Music's free tier gains a useful feature only to lose another

YouTube Music is becoming a music-only thing unless you pay up.

What you need to know

• Google is making some notable changes to YouTube Music.
• The app will soon no longer allow free users to watch music videos.
• This comes after Google announced that the free tier would get background listening.
• The changes are expected to occur on November 3.

Google recently announced a rather useful change coming to YouTube Music, finally allowing users on the free tier to listen to music in the background like many of the best music streaming services. However, that new perk comes with another change, one that users may not like as much.

In a YouTube Music support page spotted by 9to5Google, the company says that free-tier users will no longer be able to watch videos with the app. This feature will soon become a Premium-tier perk, essentially swapping features as background listening will no longer require a Premium subscription.

Being able to watch music videos in addition to listening to audio tracks is one of the nice perks about YouTube Music, but this change would signal a shift towards more of an audio-only app. However, this would give free users yet another reason to consider switching to the Premium subscription, with YouTube Music handling all their music needs.

The support page also laid out the upcoming differences between the two tiers. Those on the free tier will soon have access to:

• listen to music in the background
• shuffle play personalized mixes (that are made just for you!)
• find the perfect mood mixes for activities like workout, commute and more
• explore millions of songs & thousands of playlists, free of cost
• continue to play uploaded tracks on-demand

While those on Premium will be able to:

• listen to songs on-demand
• watch videos on YouTube Music
• skip tracks an unlimited number of times
• enjoy YouTube Music without ads

To help explain the changes, YouTube product manager Jason Robinson will host an AMA on October 21 to answer questions and take feedback on the changes, so if you feel a particular way about the update, this is where you can address it.

The update will take place November 3 in Canada first, with other countries to follow at some point.