So, they're trying to reimplement all the bad ideas from the old iTunes desktop app, or something?

Worryingly, YouTube Music and Tidal will probably be #1 and #2, revenue-wise, in the music streaming space this year.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/spotify-statistics/

At least the expected half-life of the Google offering is what, 18 months?

And likely also “creating a better experience” by injecting ads :/

> So they are going the way of Spotify and combining music and podcasts into the same place.

They had this. It was Google Play Music, and they added podcasts to it in 2015 (Spotify didn't open podcasting to all users until 2018). Google then split it into YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.

And let's not forget iTunes, which had both music and podcasts a year before Spotify was even founded.