YouTube Music appears to be developing a new feature that will allow users to upvote their favorite playlists, based on evidence uncovered in an APK teardown.
Currently, the music streaming service only shows the total number of plays for a playlist without any way to gauge its popularity among the community.
Strings found in version 7.05.52 of the YouTube Music Android app suggest playlist creators will be able to enable voting and control who can participate:
<string name="playlist_voting_collaborators_only">Collaborators only</string>
<string name="playlist_voting_everyone">Everyone</string>
<string name="playlist_voting_off">Voting off</string>These options indicate creators could limit upvoting to just collaborators, open it up to all users, or turn off voting entirely. YouTube’s approach offers more granular controls compared to Spotify’s former “like” count which was visible to all for public playlists.
The upvoting capability seems inspired by Spotify’s model, but that streaming service recently replaced visible “likes” with a “save” count instead. It’s unclear if YouTube Music’s upvotes will impact how playlists are ranked in search results.
While the voting functionality isn’t live yet, the underlying code is present in the latest app update, suggesting YouTube could enable it anytime. APK teardowns can reveal upcoming features, though they may also be scrapped before release.
The upvoting system could help highlight the most popular user-generated playlists on YouTube Music and encourage more creative curation by allowing a community feedback mechanism.
