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.
There is literally absolutely nothing wrong with the Google Play Music app. On the other hand the YouTube Music app is forced upon me when I am on regular YouTube listening to music to read lyrics of songs. Their culture makes it so stuff get cancelled for the shiny new toy nobody asked for.
I've been watching the development of YouTube music for the last several years knowing my preferred platform's days were numbered.
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.
It consistently plays thing which are clearly not songs in it's auto playlists, it has no consistent normalization or quality, and makes finding albums more difficult than it needs to be.
It is an algorithm slapped over youtube rather than a music service.
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.
