You can keep Google Play Music by either installing an older version (prior to version 8.0) or installing a third-party app such as NetGuard No-root Firewall and disabling the Internet access to that app. It will run offline to manage your offline music (if you still keep songs on your new phones, like I do, given I'm in no-service in many places I go and want my music to keep playing!) but it won't do the internet playlists anymore.
Sometimes just using a version no newer than 8.0 allows the internet-side to keep working, especially if you do not install YouTube Music (installing this app will EOL Google Play Music and it will just pop-up a screen saying to use YouTube Music). But for how long this works depends on Google. It's a working trick as of now though.
Personally, I like YouTube Music. Thanks to it, I've found some rather neat Euro-80s music I've never heard and it's a wonderful thing to discover music from around the world. While I don't expect it will live forever (YouTube Music, like any Google service, is going to be short-lived) I tend to actually buy the songs if I love them enough. I don't depend on streaming services at all like many today do (YT Music also allows you to download playlists offline as well).
I've never relied on 'the cloud' to keep files on though. Ever since the death of Ubuntu One, I've found out many 'cloud' apps/services follow Google's model of never being very future-proof. At best, it's nice for backups, or sync, or to easily wirelessly transfer from one device to another (since Android has not yet embraced an Air-drop style of transfer outside the oh-so-2010 method of 'tapping phones'.) Either way, I have both an NAS and Western Digital MyCloud that are under my control, and can't be 'killed off.'
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