I agree with you about Google Music. For those lucky enough to sign up early and get the $7.99 price, it is easily the best pay for streaming service out there.
For those wanting a social music experience Spotify is the "best".
For those wanting curated music and a digital radio experience Apple Music is the "best".
For those wanting a hands off service Pandora is the "best".
I have used Google, Spotify, and Pandora, and in my experience, Google's hands-off auto-generated playlists are extremely high quality. They also have great radio/curated playlists via the Songza acquisition.
Spotify is a clear winner for a social experience, but I think you're really underestimating Google on the other dimensions.
In Rdio I really enjoy the comments feature and how generally constructive it tends to be. In addition it's easy to find people with similar musical tastes in the list of recent listeners - I've followed people via this mechanism and found great music as a result. I don't see how to do the same in Spotify at all. Spotify shows me that 300k people listened to a band, with 18k new listeners today, but no individual link to any of them? And none of them can comment, post reviews, or link to music videos or trivia? Where's the user generated/curated content?
Granted I haven't used Spotify in a few years so it may just take me some time to find all of the things that are immediately at hand in Rdio in Spotify's (imo less friendly) UI.
RIP Rdio :(
I'm just lost with Spotify and Google music, I go there and see pictures of Justin Bieber and I don't know what to do. Apple Music is a little better but it's a totally different approach, being told what's good by record labels and "tastemakers".
The way Rdio did it just seemed natural, like going over to someone's house and checking out their record collection. I almost think the others are avoiding letting you see who is listening to what so they and the labels can push more Beiber stuff.
They have radio stations by Dr Dre, Drake, Joshua Homme and countless other musical figures. Not to mention operating Beats 1 24/7 in London, NY, LA. It's pretty impressive (if that's what you're into).
I sure as hell don't want to actively pursue and catalogue music new to me, that just sounds tedious.
I find it the "easiest" music app to use because you just pick a channel and go.
It was purchased by Google a few years ago.