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Google Offers Free 4-Month Play Music Trial Subscription For July 4th (macrumors.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google is offering new U.S. subscribers a four-month free trial for its Play Music streaming service in celebration of July 4th. While everyone has their preferred music streaming service, it's hard to pass up a deal like this. The Google Play Music service offers over 35 million tracks and is usually priced at about $9.99 per month, so the offer amounts to a $40 savings. What's more is that customers who sign-up for the trial also gain access to Google's ad-free YouTube Red service, which features original content, and enables offline and background playback of YouTube videos on mobile devices. If you sign-up for the trial and decide it's not for you, you can cancel at any time.
The real story here is the likely reasons Google is practically giving away access to Play Music and YouTube Red. I'd assume that neither is doing particularly well and Google is looking for more subscribers. I don't think either is worth paying for, though. Streaming music is a crowded market and I don't see anything to differentiate Google from other services. As for YouTube Red, I suspect the ads aren't inconvenient enough to avoid and the premium content isn't worth it to most people. When you have to beg people to sign up and go to the lengths to which Google is going, it suggests that it's just not successful. That is a much more interesting story than this slashvertisement.
If it was really free, they would only ask for your credit card once the four free months are over.