YouTube Music poll lets you vote on what free feature you most want [U]

Abner Li | Jan 5 2023 - 8:32 pm PT

Team YouTube on Twitter is running a poll this afternoon on “what feature do you want the most on ad-supported” YouTube Music.

Update 1/5/23: Background play won by a clear majority in December, but the YouTube Music team is asking again on Reddit. The options — More relevant music recommendations, Sleep Timer, Improvements to Lyrics, and Background play for ad-supported listeners — are unchanged.

I wanted to collect some direct feedback from this community on top features you want to see on YouTube Music (so I can take it back to Product teams!)

Original 12/15/22: The feature options are better recommendations, sleep timer, background play, and improvements to lyrics, with the YouTube Music poll closing in six days.

Starting with the latter, YouTube Music teased in October told customers to expect “even more Lyric features in the future” following a partnership with MusixMatch to increase coverage. Google noted a “positive impact on lyrics consumption rates since launching.” Compared to Spotify and Apple, the lyrics available in YouTube Music are static and don’t get highlighted as the song plays. This would be the most obvious addition for the service.

Meanwhile, background play for free ad-supported users remains limited to Canada. Google could be referring to a wider launch of that functionality, which was announced over a year ago.

Back in July, we spotted that YouTube Music for Android was working on a sleep timer that will likely appear in the Now Playing overflow menu. It has yet to launch, and the addition is long overdue. Lastly, “better recommendations” feels like an evergreen request.

okay round #2:
what feature do you want the most on ad-supported @youtubemusic?👀

(if we missed anything, let us know in the comments!)
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) December 15, 2022

With nearly 400 votes as of Thursday afternoon, the current winner is background play, which is not surprising. You can also tweet out other features.

In late October, YouTube did a similar poll for the client on televisions and consoles. The winner was the ability to Post + View comments, with YouTube in a separate post saying it would factor this community feedback in when prioritizing development, which occurred.