It has been well established that Google is not afraid to kill services and features. Most of the time they get rid of things that few people use, but occasionally something really popular will get the cut. This week, Google is killing two features that, thankfully, fall into the former category: Google Play Music gifting and YouTube Messaging.

Google Play Music has been put into limbo as the company focuses on YouTube Music. Eventually, YouTube Music will replace Play Music. The latest update to the Android app removed the "Send gift" feature. This allowed people to give the gift of 1, 3, or 6 months of a Play Music subscription from inside the app. The support page says "Google Play Music subscriptions can no longer be purchased as gifts, but you can still gift subscriptions from the web app. YouTube Music doesn't have an equivalent feature at this time.

messages on youtube

Next up is Messages on YouTube. Added in 2017, the messaging features in YouTube allowed people to share videos and have conversations directly in the YouTube app. This was never a terribly popular feature as most people rolled their eyes at Google adding yet another messaging service. YouTube Messaging will be removed on September 18th, 2019. Google recommends using the "Share" button on videos to send videos going forward.

Are you upset about the removal of these two features? Did you Google Play Music gifting or YouTube messaging?

Source 1: 9to5Google | Source 2: Google