Starting next month, YouTube Music will become a lot more useful for non-paying customers in Canada as they will be able to stream music in the background — a perk that has so far only been available for paid subscribers. Alongside that, YouTube will be making some more changes to better differentiate between its paid and non-paid tiers, including removing music video playback support for free subscribers.
Right now, it is possible to watch music videos in the Home and Explore feeds of YouTube Music even if you don't pay for the service, with the option to seamlessly switch between audio and video playback from the Now Playing screen limited to Premium subscribers. Starting November 3, this will change for YouTube Music users in Canada as the ability to watch music videos will be moved to the Premium tier. A worldwide rollout of these changes is also on the horizon, though exact details are unknown at this point.
A Google community manager highlighted the changes coming to free and paid YouTube Music tiers in Canada in an Ask Us Anything...
Free YouTube Music subscription benefits:
- 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
YouTube Premium benefits:
- listen to songs on-demand
- watch videos on YouTube Music
- skip tracks an unlimited number of times
- enjoy YouTube Music without ads
You'll be able to continue playing songs on-demand that you uploaded to YouTube Music without any restrictions, even if you are on the free tier.
If you have never used YouTube Music to watch music videos, you don't stand to lose a lot with this change, especially since you get background music playback in return.