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Wow, is that a thing? Reminds me of an episode from Black Mirror.

It's more like a screen saver. You haven't interacted with the app in X amount of time, it suspends loading the next episode until you confirm you're still there.

No more nefarious or creepy than a screen saver.

Hell, YouTube too does that on Android, pausing playback after ~1 hour.

I was quite annoyed when I saw it for the first time - I had music playing over my Bluetooth headset while cleaning my bathroom, so it was quite inconvenient to tap on the phone when YouTube suddenly paused it to check if I'm still there.

That would be unforgivable if you were paying for Youtube Premium.

But if it's just for the ad-supported version, it makes sense.

If it is a setting that can be disabled it would make sense even for Youtube Premium imo. Accidentally leaving it on would result in a lot of data for the user, potentially missing/losing where they are, would quickly drain the battery, and so on.

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