YouTube Music’s popularity is rising, but some paying readers are still away, survey says

It’s been almost six years since Google replaced Play Music with its current streaming service, YouTube Music. Given the numerous surveys and reader comments we conducted and observed during this period, it is safe to say that this was a good decision.

I still miss the days of Play Music, so much so that I switched to Spotify in 2021 and haven’t looked back. However, many readers still use or have adopted YouTube Music as their primary music streaming service. But how many?

My colleague Rita El Khoury recently wrote an article explaining why she doesn’t use YouTube Music, despite paying for YouTube Premium. It appears to have caused a stir: The poll we ran on this article received over 7,700 votes, and many readers disagree.

So, what do the numbers say? Well, more than two out of every three respondents in this survey (68.3%) use YouTube Music as their “primary music streaming service.” In fact, if you include those who “occasionally” use YouTube Music, nearly four out of every five readers use Google’s music streaming service. It is worth noting that 10.8% of respondents in this “sometimes” category use another music service as their primary one.

In particular, some readers explain in the comments why they use YouTube Music, highlighting its key advantages over Spotify.

As reader Lena Meena notes:

Your concerns are true, but I mainly use YT Music because it has all the music from YouTube. For example, a remix of a song will be more difficult to find on Spotify than on YT Music. I’m a free user, and I love looping songs, but unfortunately, Spotify is a bit of a money chaser, so I’ll have to switch to YT Music.

Either way, the number of respondents who do not use YouTube Music is quite small. Interestingly, 12.4% of respondents pay for YouTube Premium but do not use the premium-tier music access that comes with it. Finally, 8.5% of respondents do not pay for it or do not use it, even for free.

Interestingly, while Lena Meena likes the integration of YouTube with music, commentator Frank V. finds it negative:

I hate that YouTube Music is so tied to YouTube. That’s the main reason I don’t use it. I want a music app that’s just music, so I use Apple Music.

As I mentioned earlier, these results are largely in line with what we’ve seen in the past. In July 2025 we ran a survey asking readers what they thought was the best music streaming service, with 54% of the 18,000 respondents now using YouTube Music as their primary choice, with Spotify close behind at 34%.