I have used Google, Spotify, and Pandora, and in my experience, Google's hands-off auto-generated playlists are extremely high quality. They also have great radio/curated playlists via the Songza acquisition.
Spotify is a clear winner for a social experience, but I think you're really underestimating Google on the other dimensions.
Coming from Rdio, I'm genuinely curious where you find the social experience in Spotify. Is it all in FB?
In Rdio I really enjoy the comments feature and how generally constructive it tends to be. In addition it's easy to find people with similar musical tastes in the list of recent listeners - I've followed people via this mechanism and found great music as a result. I don't see how to do the same in Spotify at all. Spotify shows me that 300k people listened to a band, with 18k new listeners today, but no individual link to any of them? And none of them can comment, post reviews, or link to music videos or trivia? Where's the user generated/curated content?
Granted I haven't used Spotify in a few years so it may just take me some time to find all of the things that are immediately at hand in Rdio in Spotify's (imo less friendly) UI.
Man I took the ability to follow people based on musical tastes for granted - I spent so much time looking for people all over the world who were listening to interesting stuff and ever morning I download a few albums I found on the Trending page.
I'm just lost with Spotify and Google music, I go there and see pictures of Justin Bieber and I don't know what to do. Apple Music is a little better but it's a totally different approach, being told what's good by record labels and "tastemakers".
The way Rdio did it just seemed natural, like going over to someone's house and checking out their record collection. I almost think the others are avoiding letting you see who is listening to what so they and the labels can push more Beiber stuff.
I agree with your take on social with Rdio & Spotify. Rdio was the strongest in this category.
Still, Rdio could have done more to emphasis finding your music "friend" - someone who has the similar preferences. It was the differentiator.
I don't know about debatable so far as Apple's advantage.
They have radio stations by Dr Dre, Drake, Joshua Homme and countless other musical figures. Not to mention operating Beats 1 24/7 in London, NY, LA. It's pretty impressive (if that's what you're into).
I've used Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music (Now Groove Music), and I find Google Music's recommendation engine by far the best. They even have a "I'm feeling lucky" feature that plays a set of curated music to your interest randomly.
This make a lot of sense to me. Every time this discussion comes up, I'm stuck wondering what the hubbub is, since I've never wanted for anything more than Pandora. In fact, Pandora is perfect for me, since I very specifically do not want to curate my music at all beyond choosing a song, artist or genre and letting it pick stuff I might like. Letting me thumbs up/down stuff to get it better to my tastes is just gravy.
I sure as hell don't want to actively pursue and catalogue music new to me, that just sounds tedious.
Check out Songza if you haven't already. Curated pre-defined stations by genre takes things even a step further than Pandora as far as not wanting to manually curate.
I find it the "easiest" music app to use because you just pick a channel and go.
For those wanting a social music experience Spotify is the "best".
For those wanting curated music and a digital radio experience Apple Music is the "best".
For those wanting a hands off service Pandora is the "best".