Dead? They just have two competing products, the older Google Play Music, and the more modern YouTube Music. The app is dead, but the Music Streaming Service by Google is still here, under a different name, and at a similar price.
Huh? I'm still using it every other day or so.
YouTube Music fills the needs of some, perhaps many users, but it is not a 1:1 replacement and I'm not a fan of what they have to offer.
Also I hold a bit of resentment for YTM since the YouTube app no longer allows backgrounding podcast-style content or playing it with the screen locked. It tells you to go to YouTube Music instead but that's definitely not the right UX for watching/listening to that kind of content.
Can you give an example? I can background Joe Rogan with the regular YouTube app (I have YouTube Premium).
Frankly it's garbage and when they finally pull the trigger and kill google music I'm going to stop paying them.
I actually switched to YT Music a year ago as I preferred the UX. But it's indeed subjective.
GPM and YTM are identical subscriptions and always have been for as long as I can remember, if not forever, save for that short time when YouTube Red was inexplicably a few dollars more per month compared to GPM.
It is an algorithm slapped over youtube rather than a music service.