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YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

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Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#11

Post by pwg »

sidrag22 wrote: post #8

Whenever I see this particular "feature" being blocked, all I can think of is my own past personal usage of this feature. It was purely to listen to podcasts or whatever while in the car. So by default this feature should just work, and it should be: turn on the source and listen. Instead its disabled to try to extract more revenue out of users, so my personal use case becomes a potential road hazard for people who d…

> So personally I've found what i consider to be a safe alternative.

A bit more effort, but downloading the podcast and listening to it via a basic audio player app that does not further enshitify itself daily is even safer.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#12

Post by nkrisc »

jagraff wrote: post #9
bm3719 wrote: post #7

It seems crazy and impossible now, but imagine this notion: Software should serve the needs of the user. Software that does things the user doesn't want, like try to trick money out of him, waste his bandwidth, or fill his screen with unwanted ads used to have a name: Malware. We've redefined that term to mean when a non-BigTech firm does those things, but the definition used to be functional, not attributional. RMS…

Would it be better if youtube removed the free, ad supported version entirely, and only allowed paid users?

It would be better if there was a better value proposition, instead of “pay to get what we removed”.

It’s not as though free users listening with the app in the background is somehow an additional marginal expense as opposed to them listening with the app in the foreground.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#14

Post by pwg »

nothrowaways wrote: post #6

Such a poor management team at YouTube lately.

No, this is the enshitification phase as laid out by Cory Docktrow:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/

They are now in the phase of making everything worse in a vain attempt to increase ad (or subscription) revenue streams.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#15

Post by sidrag22 »

pwg wrote: post #11
sidrag22 wrote: post #8

Whenever I see this particular "feature" being blocked, all I can think of is my own past personal usage of this feature. It was purely to listen to podcasts or whatever while in the car. So by default this feature should just work, and it should be: turn on the source and listen. Instead its disabled to try to extract more revenue out of users, so my personal use case becomes a potential road hazard for people who d…

> So personally I've found what i consider to be a safe alternative. A bit more effort, but downloading the podcast and listening to it via a basic audio player app that does not further enshitify itself daily is even safer.

at some point ima stop being lazy and setup the reverse proxy for my jellyfin server and this will be a smooth "ytaudio {url}" alias that downloads through ytdlp and places it in the proper folder .

For now its a rare enough occurrence where i just keep neglecting it.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#17

Post by [deleted] »

sidrag22 wrote: post #15
pwg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So personally I've found what i consider to be a safe alternative. A bit more effort, but downloading the podcast and listening to it via a basic audio player app that does not further enshitify itself daily is even safer.

at some point ima stop being lazy and setup the reverse proxy for my jellyfin server and this will be a smooth "ytaudio {url}" alias that downloads through ytdlp and places it in the proper folder . For now its a rare enough occurrence where i just keep neglecting it.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#18

Post by weare138 »

tengbretson wrote: post #13

Who cares about what free users want?

Why wouldn't I assume they're just going to screw over their paid customers too? Now ask me why I would never pay for YouTube Premium. And there's your answer. You're actively discouraging people from giving you their money which was the entire purpose of having a business to begin with.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#19

Post by pavel_lishin »

pwg wrote: post #11
sidrag22 wrote: post #8

Whenever I see this particular "feature" being blocked, all I can think of is my own past personal usage of this feature. It was purely to listen to podcasts or whatever while in the car. So by default this feature should just work, and it should be: turn on the source and listen. Instead its disabled to try to extract more revenue out of users, so my personal use case becomes a potential road hazard for people who d…

> So personally I've found what i consider to be a safe alternative. A bit more effort, but downloading the podcast and listening to it via a basic audio player app that does not further enshitify itself daily is even safer.

Yeah, how many podcasts are Youtube exclusive? I can't imagine there's that many, if any at all.

Re: YouTube Blocks Background Listening Workaround for Free Users

#20

Post by pirates »

chatmasta wrote: post #3

Vinegar extension still works on iOS. It restores the native HTML5 element to websites like YouTube that go out of their way to circumvent it or add listeners to pause it when focus leaves the page. Since it’s the native video element, it works with the native iOS picture-in-picture. It should frankly be illegal for Google to interfere with this like they try to do, but luckily this extension solves the problem.

This does work with the screen on. But at least for me Vinegar background audio while locked hasn’t worked for the past several weeks. Once you lock it no longer recognizes there’s any media to play.
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