YouTube Music adds new features to sharpen its fight with rivals
With Taste Match playlists and concert discovery tools, the streaming giant shows it’s coming for Spotify and Apple Music’s turf.
Ten years ago, YouTube Music launched with one big promise: to merge the world’s largest video-sharing platform with the universal love of music. Now, as it marks its first decade, the app is rolling out new features that could make it a stronger rival to streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music.
At the heart of the update is the new Taste Match playlists, which blend your favorite tracks with your friends’ picks into a daily-refreshing playlist. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Spotify’s Blend has been doing something similar for years. But for YouTube, tapping into the app’s social roots while giving music fans a reason to stick around could be a clever move.
Another thing the streaming giant is adding is comments and badges. These are already pretty huge on YouTube itself, but soon music lovers, too, will be able to leave reactions directly on albums and playlists. Fans can also earn loyalty badges like First to Watch or Top Listener.
It’s a social layer Spotify hasn’t quite nailed yet, and it could make music streaming feel more like joining a community.
YouTube hasn’t stopped at social features, though.
Through a new Bandsintown partnership, fans will get nudges toward live shows, merch drops, and album releases while browsing videos and Shorts. Combined with Create, its iOS video-editing app, the ecosystem keeps creators and fans inside the platform, reinforcing both content production and consumption.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
The timing of these features also isn’t random—it’s YouTube signaling it wants more than just a seat at the table. Right now, the company revealed that its catalog now includes over 300 million tracks, not just studio versions, but live performances, remixes, and covers. That’s three times Spotify’s 100 million.
On top of that, users themselves have created over 4 billion music-focused playlists, with nearly half publicly available.
Add that to YouTube Music and Premium subscriptions, which climbed from 100 million in February 2024 to 125 million by March 2025 (via TechCrunch), and one can see that YouTube’s gamble on blending video, music, and community is paying off, albeit slowly.
Sure, Spotify is still the giant, with over 600 million users, while Apple Music leans on exclusive deals and tight ecosystem lock-in. YouTube Music, though, is betting on shared taste, community, and real-world connection, and if it succeeds, playlists might no longer just be a personal activity.
Emmanuel Umahi
