It looks like Google no longer allows users to gift Play Music subscriptions via Android. The move is far from being surprising as the app rarely received updates and those that were pushed out added minor improvements and very few new features.
The messages someone gets when trying to gift a Play Music subscription reads: “Important – Google Play Music subscriptions can no longer be purchased as gifts.” However, if you really want to gift someone a Play music subscription, there’s a workaround, but it involves using an older version of the Android app or simply gifting it through the web app.
It’s unclear whether or not Google plans to bring back the feature in some other form, so, for now, you can only use the web app or the workaround mentioned above to gift someone a Play Music subscription from an Android device.
Reports about Google phasing out Play Music and replacing it with YouTube Remix have been running around since April, so this might be one of the first steps towards its demise.
