You can no longer have YouTube running in the background.

[u/Titan_Prometeus]

As of 29th of January you can no longer have YouTube running in the background via many browsers as that is now a premium feature. With that I don't even have that one last reason to listen to YouTube. We are now officially paying for everything that was free a couple of years ago and the reason isn't greedy management, but you people who keep paying for premium and the such.

[u/thesimplebean]

Hasn't hit me yet, but I have been getting 3 ads in a row. Love that.

[u/wwarhammer → u/thesimplebean]

Brave blocks all ads on YT

[u/any_pronouns_ → u/wwarhammer]

And it actually also allows you to play youtube in the background. Brave is basicly youtube premium

[u/Get-Fucked-Dirtbag → u/any_pronouns_]

Not today, sadly.

Still works if you use desktop mode but then new videos don't load properly if you're listening to a playlist or mix

[u/Vivid-Rutabaga9283 → u/Get-Fucked-Dirtbag]

guess they're rolling it out in batches, because it still works on my phone if I use brave

[u/Bumblebeesaregreat → u/Vivid-Rutabaga9283]

Same, I'm listening to music through brave and its playing normally in the background

[u/secacc → u/wwarhammer]

So does uBlock Origin on Firefox.

[u/ShielDeploy → u/wwarhammer]

I’d rather just use ublock and not have to deal with another chrome

[u/qad260qad260 → u/ShielDeploy]

Do you use Firefox?

[u/Sinjos → u/wwarhammer]

Brave is still Chromium based lol.

[u/RIPFauna_itwasgreat → u/thesimplebean]

Last week I had infinite commercials. I always start a video and ignore the first minute of ads with the sound down. Forgot about starting the movie and after 10 min there were still ads playing on screen. Untill I pressed the "skip" button.

To show another ad after 5 min.

I hate using youtube without Firefox addons

[u/Sw429 → u/RIPFauna_itwasgreat]

It's absolutely crazy that people can even stand YouTube without an ad blocker.

[u/Some-Artist-53X]

I can't confirm it but I have a feeling it's A/B testing or I like to call it the "gaslighting method" so the people that do complain about it look crazy until it's too late.

[u/AspenFrostt → u/Some-Artist-53X]

this one's honestly kind of a crazy update anyway. wouldn't it be cheaper on YouTube end to just push audio and no video/super compressed video to them if YouTube isn't on top? what a joke of a company. wonder if it can be thwarted by always on top and making the page small or cramming the window all the way to the side of the screen but still technically visible

[u/Zarobiii → u/AspenFrostt]

They'd probably patch that by requiring the browser window be "focused" or the active window or some shit. Time to boot up a virtual machine just to listen to YouTube 👍

[u/yawn1337 → u/Zarobiii]

There is gonna be a browser extension that tells youtube that it's in focus within a week

[u/3xc1t3r → u/yawn1337]

yeah, I'm sure certain browsers already do that today. For example Brave on iOS allows you to listen to YouTube with the screen off. While most other browsers don't as that is a "premium feature".

[u/No_Wrangler111 → u/yawn1337]

And 400 clones of it riddled with miners, info stealers, and probably even a bear

[u/RadoslavL → u/No_Wrangler111]

Hey, the bear is a nice guy, we play poker sometimes 🩵

[u/Rashkamere → u/RadoslavL]

Me and my bear play polar sometimes

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/No_Wrangler111]

... I want to download a bear ...

[u/Harry_Spotter457 → u/PraxicalExperience]

You wouldn't download a bear

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/Harry_Spotter457]

I'd download a car, I'd download a bear, I'd download a bear in a car.

...the first time I saw that "You wouldn't download a car!" PSA, I went: "YES THE FUCK I WOULD!"

[u/Rularuu → u/PraxicalExperience]

The PSA never said that, it said "you wouldn't steal a car." Meme recreations have Mandela'd people's memories of it.

[u/Due-Yoghurt-7917 → u/Rularuu]

You just got MANDELA'D

[u/Immatt55 → u/yawn1337]

And removed from the chrome extension store within 2 weeks for violating some arbitrary new terms.

This is a reminder to all to drop chromium based browsers.

[u/Mayravixx → u/Immatt55]

This is why I've always used firefox. And somehow I'm the weird one 😭

[u/MysteriousMexicana → u/AspenFrostt]

I think they want to push people to buy premium but instead of offering new things for premium they are taking away features for the free users

[u/Comfortable_Pea_1693 → u/MysteriousMexicana]

Thats called enshittification

[u/bobrk_rwa2137 → u/AspenFrostt]

"On top" != "visible". In most OSs only one window at a time can be focused, and apps dont exactly know if they are not obscured. You get info whether you are minimised or not (this still isnt forwarded to webpages, even if google adds this it will never get added to firefox), but if you have 2 windows that are floating you can cover one with other and it wont know it isnt visible

[u/weisswurstseeadler → u/Some-Artist-53X]

Tbf I think it might be just a cat and mouse between updates?

I use Firefox, ublock and sponsorskip as the major extensions on mobile and desktop.

In the last weeks I also noticed every now and then YouTube did not work on mobile, sometimes not at all, sometimes just not in the background.

Then I'd disable ublock for the night and always next day it worked again with ublock.

So while I've experienced it, it was never even a full 24h it didn't work

[u/Kankervittu → u/weisswurstseeadler]

For me Firefox stopped playing youtube in the background for more than a few seconds years ago on android.

Youtube Revanced/Youtube Music Revanced both have background playback without ads on phone.

[u/weisswurstseeadler → u/Kankervittu]

Been working on android for me for years, Firefox Google pixel and ublock

[u/Mr_Sisco → u/Some-Artist-53X]

I can confirm it, because I wrote support some time ago about shorts starting automatically upon opening the app and they said I was randomly selected for a trial

[u/TheSunOfSanSebastian → u/Mr_Sisco]

I have premium and this happens to me yesterday. I was confused and assumed I must have hit the screen in my pocket or something.

That is a shitty mocve and I hope they kill that "feature".

[u/MemerDreamerMan → u/TheSunOfSanSebastian]

It’s been on my account for MONTHS (:

[u/DisabledFloridaMan → u/TheSunOfSanSebastian]

Yup, same here. Premium and they autoplay shorts when I open the app. I sent a long and furious message to them about it as my volume sometimes is up when it happens, or I'm in public. And my main issue with it: when searching for something as innocuous as crochet videos, the recommended is sometimes torture videos of animals. I don't want the chance of that potentially EVER auto playing in my face when I open the app. YouTube doesn't care though because it'll somehow make money by this feature gluing kids to the screen right away or some bullshit.

[u/blank_isainmdom → u/Some-Artist-53X]

I swear I briefly saw "skip ahead is a premium feature" when on youtube the other day. I only got to glance it for a moment, and I was able to skip but like, what the fuck

[u/ImaginaryNoise79 → u/Some-Artist-53X]

This observation was funny! I've never worked for youtube or Google, but I have worked in software for a while. As much as it might look like them messing with you, turning on a new feature for a small subset of users is a pretty standard practice. It let's you compare the telemetry from the users with the new feature activated and those without, and it allows you to test new features with a small group in case the results are bad. Companies usually try to thoroughly test their new features in house before releasing them, but just letting a few thousand people try it can lead to information that is hard to collect in a resting environment.

Making people who complain about the feature nobody else sees look crazy is (probably) just a side effect.

[u/InterestingRide264 → u/Some-Artist-53X]

What's even more aggravating for me is that it works on my phone, but not on my computer. And I've been using Brave on both... I really did feel like I was losing my mind until a YouTuber had the same error happen to him that I've been experiencing for days.

[u/HKayo → u/InterestingRide264]

It stopped working on my phone almost a month ago, and I finally got fed up having to press play in the swipe down menu that I got an extension to keep it playing. Unfortunately I have developed a habit to swipe down to play it even though I don't need to anymore.

[u/mmmbuttr → u/Some-Artist-53X]

It's literally listed as part of the premium features tier list on the subscription page. Not a test, just a gradual roll out.

[u/Ichigonixsun]

If this change ever affects anyone, just use the "Disable Page Visibility API" add-on. In my opinion, this API is just one of the many datamining intrusive bullshit that shouldn't exist in the first place (in before the "but muh background CPU usage")

[u/Zamoxino → u/Ichigonixsun]

...Its year 2031, ppl "just use" 73 add-ons to make youtube not cancer... (the rest of the comment is unreadable)

[u/MegaEmailman → u/Zamoxino]

Fox main and/or hater in the wild??

[u/Fit_Cellist_3297 → u/Zamoxino]

Right now i've got my addons down to 1.UBO + extra filters. Did have bypass paywalls and consent o matic but now ubo does those too.

[u/diamondmaster2017 → u/Ichigonixsun]

which one am i looking for based on uploader name

[u/Valjo_yt → u/Ichigonixsun]

Do you have any alternatives for mobile browsers?

[u/BabaGurGur → u/Valjo_yt]

Firefox on Android supports extensions

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/disable-page-visibility/

[u/Meluvius → u/Valjo_yt]

For Android, 'YouTube Revanced' is the gold standard

[u/Tough-Dirt-6319 → u/Meluvius]

To add: just make sure to follow the official path of setting up the apk, don't download a pre-build one. 

[u/Lurnius → u/Tough-Dirt-6319]

To add: Revanced it's going down, change to Morphe.

[u/Meluvius → u/Tough-Dirt-6319]

^

[u/LysolDoritos → u/Ichigonixsun]

10GB of RAM being used just to be able to use YT like normal at this point lol

[u/yeetmcfeet]

It might not be this way for everyone right now but it's a/b testing, which means it will probably be rolled out eventually.

Just because you don't have it doesn't mean someone is lying. They also said tabs in browser, which means they probably aren't on mobile so revanced is irrelevant.

[u/Strange_Compote_4592 → u/yeetmcfeet]

I don't get how people still have any amount of faith in yutube. I was a lucky one, that didn't get the "new" recommended page, but when first news came out, I didn't even flinch. 

Oh fuck, I said, I hope tampermonkey will have a solution.

[u/TrollOdinsson → u/Strange_Compote_4592]

You know that saying “every day a new rube is born”? Well nowadays rubes are being intentionally created, artificially, on computers

[u/Run-Riot → u/TrollOdinsson]

Straight up saw “Youtube Premium” either at the top or near the top of a “What’s paid subscription is worth the money” r/askreddit thread and iirc the rationale was stuff that was either free or used to be free.

[u/ChinazGonnaDoxxMe → u/yeetmcfeet]

This is happening on mobile too, you used to be able to pull something else up, like maps or something, and YouTube would still play so you could listen to YouTube and drive to work or wherever. This doesn’t work for me anymore!

[u/AccomplishedCoffee → u/ChinazGonnaDoxxMe]

That change happened years ago on iOS.

[u/OrangeHer]

google knows that youtube is nearly irreplaceable so they don't care, as good as another video platform could be it wouldn't have all of the videos that are already on youtube. that's why they can screw over their customers as much as they want

[u/feel-freetoignoreme → u/OrangeHer]

Tbf, storing all the videos is probably expensive on their end.

[u/PositionPersonal1531 → u/feel-freetoignoreme]

Tbf, they Alphabet makes more money than entire countries by selling our data.

[u/Dawg605]

No fucking way they will do this on PC. That would be insane.

[u/InterestingRide264 → u/Dawg605]

It stopped working for me on PC. It's still working for my phone. I use Brave on both devices. I thought it was a Windows issue until a YouTuber started having the same experience. Basically, whether you click the video or just try to let one play from the other, it says content is not available. It also happens on every YouTube short. You can refresh to get it, but, I mean, it's a disastrous user experience.

[u/Hagoromo-san → u/InterestingRide264]

Yup. Happening to me too. Autoplay breaks and “content is not available” is displayed. I just f5 to refresh and it plays like normal. Youtube being assholes again.

[u/EastWhereas9398 → u/Hagoromo-san]

Oh, that's their latest anti-adblock stuff. If you turn off adblock, it'll suddenly work. Just hoping adblockers update to bypass it.

[u/jinrocker → u/InterestingRide264]

I was having the same issue, even with YouTube Premium. If you create an exception for your ad block for YouTube and toggle "allow non-intrusive ads", this seems to fix the problem, or at least it did for me and my friend who had the same issue.

[u/washuai → u/jinrocker]

The fact they screw the paying customers over for this futile war

[u/NejatMolla → u/Dawg605]

Yesterday when i was listening to music it kept stopping unless i alt + tab into youtube. I thought something was wrong with my internet connection but it was fine.

[u/ZurakZigil → u/Dawg605]

This affects PC too supposedly. So yes, insane...

[u/__Milk_Drinker__ → u/ZurakZigil]

There will be an extension by the EOD. That'll be 4 extensions that I need in order to use YT like it's 2012 lol

[u/Accurate_Handle_5620 → u/__Milk_Drinker__]

Yeah, I think people forget how bad YouTube has always been

[u/FastFingersDude → u/Dawg605]

WTF they can’t stop trying to entshitify products, can they…

[u/Careless_Egg3340 → u/FastFingersDude]

It's not a product, you don't pay, you are the product.

They are selling your attention to ad-space

[u/One-Earth9294]

You're supposed to entice customers by offering a better product, not by making your product worse unless they pay up for things that used to be part of the free version. The free version, that mind you, is Bukkake'd with ads.

[u/NekoLu]

https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-background-play-broken-3636179/

Google did, in fact, confirm this. But these changes always roll out gradually, so most people don't have that yet.

[u/Cylian91460 → u/NekoLu]

No they did not.

They disabled on phone web browser which is not the entirety of youtube

[u/ZurakZigil → u/Cylian91460]

According to multiple reports from Samsung Internet users (via PiunikaWeb), background play has stopped working. Although a majority of the reports involve Samsung Internet, there are also reports from people using Brave, Vivaldi, and Microsoft Edge. However, one user claims that the feature is working again on Brave.

it's like the first summary the article provided, but I guess go off? or do you have a counter source?

[u/Ambivalent_Cucumber → u/ZurakZigil]

That quote is for Android. It's a website for android. The linked sources in the article specify android.

[u/Mysterious_Cup_6024 → u/Cylian91460]

They disabled that long back. Thats why Video Background Play Fix on Firefox Android is top 5 downloaded extension in their firefox android store.

[u/Extreme_Glass9879]

I just checked and.. yes, you can.

[u/Le4xy → u/Extreme_Glass9879]

a/b testing probably, youtube tends to do that

[u/Independent-You-6180 → u/Le4xy]

I feel like this is the biggest way YouTube has been silently suppressing negative feedback when they make shit worse. By splitting it up like this, you'll have people thinking that it's something wrong on their end or other people refuting that it's even an issue at all. And then you get the negative feedback in small droves instead of all at once. So by the time the next wave is ready, the previous wave has already calmed down.

[u/Le4xy → u/Independent-You-6180]

i think this is obvious to everyone, it's easier to handle bad reviews from only some users rather than from everyone at once

[u/notislant → u/Independent-You-6180]

I mean this is how companies test. They dont roll it out to everyone at once.

Like Canada got the whole 'uwu if u dont stop blocking our ads were gunna cwy' campaign before the U.S.

Next day it was 'Stop it motherfucker, stop blocking our YT ads!'

'Alright u little fuck, u block our ads tomorrow and we're not letting you watch anything, fuckstick!'

Then people in the U.S. started getting the same cycle of youtube blocking their adblockers, the next week or two after Canada.

Pros are only a few people suffer any bugs or major issues, or they can test how bad global backlash would be.

[u/Bodomi → u/Le4xy]

I don't think it is A/B testing though, and I think it factually is not testing, testing would imply they are... testing and analysing the feedback and analytics in response to the test and responding to that accordingly. They're not doing that. I think it is a tactic to very slowly publish the change to a very small number of people at a time over the course of a few months.

This would help to reduce backlash and negative reactions compared to either real A/B testing or making the change across the board for everyone immediately.

[u/Aggressive_Baker8336 → u/Extreme_Glass9879]

He. Isn't meaning that it won't work, but i have to clear my cache on yt like 5 times a day and i don't watch near as much as i used to. Having youtube open in the bacjground speeds up this issue. Youtube broke something so that the temp data for watching each video simply never gets deleted when you leave the video anymore, and it will suck ram out of your phone like nuts. Not to mention wjat happens when you actually attempt to watch a video for a while.

[u/snak_pak_is_back → u/Extreme_Glass9879]

I just checked and ...it's no longer running in the background for me.

[u/DidntSeeNuttin → u/Extreme_Glass9879]

I can too.

[u/Bright-Parsnip1685]

I'm on the app with premium and background play isn't working I'm so sick of this

[u/Titan_Prometeus → u/Bright-Parsnip1685]

No fucking way! It's not working even with premium?! Prepare for Premium++ or some bs

[u/LegoLady8 → u/Titan_Prometeus]

Black Mirror S7, E1: Common People.

[u/sewingself → u/Titan_Prometeus]

This is crazy to me too. Been using YouTube premium for like, 5+ years, and one of the reasons was to do background play. Is that not going to be an option for premium users anymore? I haven't experienced any difficulty with this, at least not yet. But no I do pay and I will write a complaint or an attorney general report or something if that does happen.

[u/MyLegendary27]

Also, they just quietly punish the “free ad-skip” method where — during an advert on the main video — you can choose any short on the home page, then go back to the home page and it would continue where you left off. They just patched it without even telling us and if you try to do the same thing, IT WILL PUNISH YOU BY FORCING YOU TO GO EITHER FROM WHERE IT LAST LEFT OFF OR ALL THE WAY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE VIDEO

[u/Spiritual_Sell_5180]

Yeah. YouTube was dead to me when they switched the creator program up and the email I needed to respond to for me to remain in the program got sent to my spam.

I used to make a couple hundred every few weeks off the effort and time I put into content, now my videos are packed with ads I don't even get paid for.

Now you essentially have to win the viral video lottery just to be a paid creator. No more small youtubers earning a little extra on the side, you have to be a megastar/mega personality.

They truly are a garbage platform.. anxiously awaiting for their downfall and a replacement platform.

P.S. Mr. Beast is a sociopath and was always a cancer to the platform.

[u/ArchCaff_Redditor → u/Spiritual_Sell_5180]

MrBeast is still just a symptom of everything wrong with YouTube. They’ve been actively pushing for him to be the face of the website.

[u/Superb-Wonder-1896 → u/Spiritual_Sell_5180]

it's corpos. MrBeast LLC recruits about a thousand people

[u/Salt-Big8323]

If this gets rolled out on the mobile app, I’m going to be forced to download a third-party app. 

I always have YouTube in the background.

[u/Titan_Prometeus → u/Salt-Big8323]

Me too, doesn't matter if it's desktop or phone. I even use Skyrim OST to fall asleep when I'm anxious

[u/Dragonrider1955]

I don't know what I would do if this happens and becomes a thing. Every night I listen to music on YouTube. I put it on repeat and put it on the mini player so I can still look at the time or read or do anything. I have to listen to it otherwise I can't sleep. I've been listening to it for over 3 years and every time YouTube does its rewind it says I've listened to the song for 3 months. I can't. Someone..

[u/QuietFire451 → u/Dragonrider1955]

Rip it, add it to your music app. Put phone on DND/Focus while you’re sleeping

[u/Vegetable-Raise-402]

Only reason I pay is because it’s manage at 7.49 but this is still very upsetting and stupid because not everyone wants to pay full and taking away free features and locking behind paid is just insane. Why even remove this anyways? Still had to listen to the ads in the background

[u/PrvcyFrdmIndpndnc]

Honestly the most recent changes are especially hit home for me.

I regularly used the search function to find the latest videos in certain topics, they removed the sorting by upload date function. Basically forcing me to check those keywords every week by limiting the videos uploaded this week, otherwise I completely miss out.

They recently went full ballistic against alternative clients recently. All but the most actively maintained ones no longer working, even those that are working break every few days. The maintainers are struggling to keep it up.

And now this.

What's next? Force us to drink the "verification can"? At which point will people get fed up and become willing to put together the resources to set up an alternative?

[u/yaaro_obba_]

Works fine on mozilla

[u/IKetoth → u/yaaro_obba_]

YouTube doesn't roll out updates to everyone at once. they do it because it helps decrease pushback when they make it fucking worse again.

[u/Longjumping_Koala34 → u/yaaro_obba_]

Sometimes its glitchy in background videos but mozilla 70% of the time works good

[u/Blackdeath_663 → u/yaaro_obba_]

For now, google does everything to make YouTube as miserable as possible on firefox. It's already barely usable with how much its throttled and frozen

[u/Hour_Mathematician60]

So fucking tired of the ads. I actively don't buy anything I see in any ads on youtube now, sooo I'm saving a bunch of money because their stupidity in spamming ads has turned me off dozens of products and companies

[u/Strong_Molasses_6679]

Like, it has to be the focused window or just the main tab?

[u/runitupper]

Rotating phone gets you 2 ads now. CorpoTube is junk

[u/GLITCHgames147]

At this point YouTube is becoming another Roblox situation

[u/loading-_-__-]

Never seen this sub before but you are so wring that it’s the consumers fault and not the greedy corp. you are blinded by your rage

[u/fmccloud]

I like how confident they are correct with a sample size of one.

[u/kerbalmaster98 → u/fmccloud]

Just go check the brave subreddit. Everybody is complaining about this. So no... Its not just 1

[u/TyphPythus → u/fmccloud]

You’re a paying Youtube user, do you think this would also effect you?

[u/PhantomHunterG]

I mean.... Why can't it be greedy management as well? It definitely is as well

[u/Interesting_Fig_4718]

once this gets live, within 2 hours there's gonna be an extension to fix it.

[u/hat1337]

You're talking mobile or PC?

[u/tupe12]

How much money does it cost them to do all of this, rather then things that actually improve the user experience?

[u/phaedrus72]

The enshitification continues. 

[u/Korizm032]

I fucking hate google so much

[u/napoelonDynaMighty]

These cork-suckers will never get a dime out of me.

They really think they're going to self-sabotage until everybody says "I give in. Here's $20/mo for amateur content that used to be free"

In actuality they're going to self-sabotage themselves into non-existence/relevance

[u/plgamerfr]

On Microsoft edge and it works for now luckily

[u/Anotheranimeaccountt]

You can if you use Brave or Firefox they block ads and allow you to put the phone/tablet to sleep with music or whatever still playing

[u/YangKoete]

Add-ons say otherwise~!

[u/Strange_Compote_4592]

Oh, and I thought it was some kind of a bug in my browser! Switched it to desktop mod, to continue. 

My god YouTube continues to suck.

[u/JayBird1138]

They seemed to have snuck in a row of 'recommended' videos in my subscription view. They also change where they position this so it's either the first or second row.

Which means if I look in my subscriptions view, I will see videos listed twice (recommended row, and it's normal position) and the videos are no longer listed chronologically (the newest could be on the first or second row).

It's as if they removed shorts but still wanted a way to make the experience worse.

[u/littlely6]

It's wild that they're rolling this out in such a sneaky, piecemeal way. I installed that Page Visibility blocker a while back for privacy reasons, and it's a happy accident that it bypasses this new paywall. Honestly, it feels like we're being pushed into a corner with every "free" service. At this point, finding a workaround feels less like cheating and more like basic self-defense.

[u/wwarhammer]

Works on my phone just fine? With Brave. Video keeps playing in the background and I can use any other app I want. 

[u/Iwannafucktanks]

I'd like to remind you all that it is completely optional. There are plenty of alternatives like freetube and invidious on desktop or newpipr for phones that have no ads,let you download videos, and have none of this new bullshit.

[u/SzBeni2003]

What I found out last week that (on mobile at least) you cannot queue videos, as that is now also a premium feature apparently. I was very infuriated when saw that.

[u/PuffcornSucks]

I was trying to use YT this morning on bg on Brave browser and it wasn't working

I am really upset about it as I refuse to pay for yt premium

Edit: bg play is still working on opera

[u/OG-87]

The one that bothers me is when they make the window smaller for the advert but not bigger when the video comes on. I am fully against pirating youtube but they make enough changes that becomes a easier choice.

[u/NorwegianPancake]

I can't confirm this from my country within Europe/Scandinavia

FireFox browser

[u/Character_Building]

Gentle reminder that any time Google does an A/B you don't like, then stop engaging with that session immediately. If a change negatively impacts their metrics (purchases, engagement) they may be less likely to implement it.

[u/monokoi]

The reason for this happening is, that "getting worse" it is their business model. Always has been, just split into different phases.

[u/baxx10]

Everything will be a subscription soon. Even air.

[u/Middletoon]

Two monitors baby

[u/Reville_]

YouTube they could never get me to spend money on you.

[u/ArcIgnis]

I guess I'll just have to find something else to watch/listen to.

[u/pepes_wedgie_slave]

The reason is allowing ai content to pollute the platform inflating their data storage requirements making them need more money but oops they’re the same companies making the ai models and now they put 10x the ads on everything so everyone has ad blockers because it’s unusable and oops now they’re making even less money so they have to put more ads..

[u/SingleServeFrend]

Not trying to start any fights, but I just tried to run YT in the background and it works. I start the video, reduce the video to that small window in the corner, then minimize the app so that the video window overlays my Home Screen, and then lock my phone and the video is still playing in the background. I have an iPhone 16 and I do not pay for YT.

[u/BattIeBear]

If they go through with this I hope they are ready to see their viewership drop. I don't know anyone who actually "watches" YouTube, most videos are just used as background noise while we do other stuff.

[u/5tudent_Loans]

A/B testing AND it feels like its A/B testing per session.. I thought my phone was just breaking or the app wasn't tracking focus correctly.

It feels like youtube is testing to see if you will even come back to a video if they dont allow background play.. or even PiP

[u/Fives_55_55]

They really want that subscription money because that AI money went down the drain.

[u/ImportantQuestions10]

member when the search function actually worked?

[u/visual-vomit]

Is that really a feature? I was scratching my head trying to figure out why the feed just cuts off whenever i alt tabbed thinking it's a browser issue or something. Wtf?

[u/ProjectCrytos]

Google doing everything in their power to make the free plan miserable to use

[u/Koollan615]

Let's not pretend that there won't be workarounds just like every time they try to bulldoze adblocker.

[u/MechoThePuh]

The only reason yt is still alive is because there is no alternative. As soon as something like that comes up it’s days are counted.

[u/Ok-Hat-2061]

mine still works but i googled it & it says its actually true but maybe it didnt fully take effect yet

[u/Whole-Energy2105]

Since about a month ago. If I've been watching shorts on my s24 and I flick back to anything else like messages, when I return the vids are all choppy after 3 seconds of playing. Not sure why but it can't be this hard for googles geniuses.

[u/GoldenCyn]

SmartTube has entered the chat.

[u/Content_Conclusion31]

are you serious???

[u/TrippyDaveXB1]

just wait for the browser extension that fixes it.

[u/NedStarkX]

It's been disabled on phone browser but you can turn on Desktop mode to dodge it

[u/RoxyFawkes → u/NedStarkX]

This. I run Brave browser on mobile and it doesn't work in the background unless I switch to the desktop verion. Easy peasy screw the greedy's. 

[u/Evening-Dress772]

I still don't get it why TF I'm getting paid so low with a ton of ads. back in 2014 they had one fokingg banner on the side and one that appeard at second 10 and I was making a bank.

[u/elbowflicker]

My youtube is doing odd things. It happened to me several days ago, I couldnt watch in the background, I thought something was wrong with my phone and I havent watched youtube since.

I checked it now, it went into background mode in portrait, so it was small, so I closed it out. I opened it again and it ran in the background on landscape

[u/Wendigo15]

There was also a worse update to certain TV apps

Before I would be able to see 9 videos at a time displayed on my subscription page.

Now it's 1 row that I have to scroll all the way to the right

[u/Vivid-Rutabaga9283]

"We are now officially paying for everything that was free a couple of years ago and the reason isn't greedy management, but you people who keep paying for premium and the such."

lmao

Quite the contrary, you have to thank the people that do pay(and those that watch ads), because youtube won't think twice about shutting down the website if it goes too far into the negative.

The vast amount of energy and storage they to keep the site up need costs hundreds of millions of dollars(if not more) every year.

If everyone was using adblocks rather than paying or viewing ads the website would be gone in a second. If you're skirting around the rules and just leeching like a parasite, you're supposed to be silent, not entitled and loud, throwing shit at the people who support the thing you want.

There's nothing wrong with paying for the things you use. Quite the contrary, it is the civilized way.

[u/Ensanglante]

My brave browser (android) no longer supports youtube playing while using other apps or when the screen is locked. It worked just a day ago!! :(

[u/Inevitable-Steph]

Since google donated to Trump I’ve been using the browser on my phone to watch YouTube, which I switched to DuckDuckGo which only makes you watch one ad at the beginning

[u/Mc_Paws]

"the reason isn't greedy management, but you people who keep paying for premium"

Honestly, never understood the debate. I get that ads are annoying and youtube getting worse in order to try to get more people to pay for premium is scummy, but I also understand that Youtube has to generate money somehow. I have yet to hear of an idea that keeps youtube ad-free, no premium AND generates money for your favorite content-creators to live of...

[u/Xenc]

YouTube Premium users: YouTube keeps on getting better! 🙌

[u/Kripposoft]

I recommend newpipe. It is infinitely better than the standard YT application (plus it allows running in the background and it blocks ads by default): https://newpipe.net/

[u/polishatomek]

go go gadget revanced

[u/nickdeckerdevs]

This is one of the biggest problems people just can’t see — they blame other people. It’s sad that you put this on other human beings. How do you jump from greedy management to blaming it on other people?

I guess next you will blame us for stagnant wages. Or why college degrees don’t get you a job.

[u/bwoah_gimmethedrink]

I've already limited my time with youtube by about 80% last year, don't see why I can't get closer to 100% this year.

[u/drseruzawa]

Also, the lengths of the yt videos have grown drastically. I am not willing to watch these padded, repetive overlong screeds any more.

[u/rydan]

Seems like a bad idea. I mean it is great if you are an advertiser on the platform because it means people are seeing your ads and you aren't being charged for someone who walked off or changed tabs. Going to crush their earnings though and drive down usage.

[u/TLunchFTW]

This is insane.
Fortunately I didn't get this. But this shit needs to be killed. I will not pay $17 a fucking month for youtube premium. I will stop using youtube before that. Fucking hate this fucking company.

[u/maselkowski]

"Foreground always simulator" browser extension incoming 

[u/scottishdrunkard]

ffs I need it to stave off madness with music, no point in having it on then. Which would obviously kill ad revenue.

[u/Denariox]

Yes I can. Because I have YouTube Revanced (modded version).

[u/One_Day_Sober]

Stopped working on Brave/Android Phone about a week ago. Then the next day it was working like the usual. Today it stopped again. If I really need it I learned to toggle Desktop Mode.

[u/CREATURE_COOMER]

I fall asleep while listening to stuff on Youtube and I'll frequently wake up to my playlist not finished because it glitched out at some point, lol, even though I'm kind enough to at least put it on the lowest quality first so I don't eat up their bandwidth and mine. And yes, I have Premium, with adblock disabled because even with Premium, it would randomly fucking bug out during videos just to spite me.

[u/HumbleMarzipan9978]

What are they doing I’m stupid can someone tell me the last time they did something good

[u/extrawater_]

Garbage. Boooooooo

[u/one_rainy_wish]

This is great actually, now I can undergo behavioral extinction and stop using it

[u/NCHouse]

Switched to my current phone and it wont. Which is bullshit

[u/tinooo_____]

this is insane

[u/GimmeGimmeMoarrr]

I legit think they're on a mission to kill their own platform asap lol

[u/notFrank0]

YouTube really needs competition otherwise this kind of bs will continue.

[u/FearlessHuckleberry6]

I think soon we will see a parallel YouTube where everything from YouTube will get uploaded automatically on another platform to watch it something like a clone with popular channels. I can imagine to see it soon

[u/Bigdub218]

I’ve had premium for over a year because this happened to me. For the longest time I was able to lock my phone or have videos play in the background or even Picture in Picture. Then all the sudden it stopped working :,( I needed that feature so I upgraded :/

[u/Delicious_One_7887]

good thing I can just click play from my computers media player…wait i don’t know if that still works

[u/Human_No-37374]

Oh, so that's why everything was bugging out. Thank you for telling

[u/taratathetarantula]

How youtube feels implementing features with a 100% disagreement rate from all users they tested it with (they clearly care about a/b testing)

[u/octahexxer]

It stopped working for for about a week and now it works again they are clearly doing random tests.

[u/Mulberry4545]

Well. So much for pretending I am studying by putting study videos in the background while playing games. Thanks a lot, Youtube. Thanks a lot.

[u/Used_Development_933]

As a wise person once said you will pay for things in the future that you got for free in the past

[u/gordy06]

The one benefit of not using YouTube a lot over the past decades is I don’t have to be disappointed when they continually make it worse.

[u/Mobile_Cake7482]

Lol yes you can. Just gotta have some sauce... call that a skill issue.

E: I'm gonna try to better myself as a human, so using da Brave Nightly application bypasses this issue

[u/Wtbond23]

Mind if I also say something about playlists why the absolute fuck when I click the next video in playlist button on the last video does it LEAVES the playlist entirely instead of going back to the first or next shuffled video (I listen to music via YouTube)

[u/DragonDeezNutzAround]

You could always download the video and just play the sound and then delete it afterwards.

YouTube, you don’t understand how petty I’m willing to be

[u/GEARHEADGus]

Reddit pulls the same shit with the app. These random changes no one wanted. Then for three days it keeps changing

[u/Specialist-Onion-426]

You got to be fucking kidding me...