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Comment by ewmiller | Hacker News Reader

I assume so. Spotify has a feature somewhat like this, but I keep it turned off because I find it annoying and distracting. It’s a bit silly to try to justify a huge move like this based on such a trivial feature, in my opinion.

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I'm not sure I follow really. Any music player I've used plays in the background. I throw in some headphones and it plays without the screen being on. I'm not really sure how else it can go in the background but I know I'm missing something. lol

See: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en

> Play videos on your mobile device while using other apps or when your screen is off. Background play is available on YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids mobile apps (if these apps are available in your location).

They only allowed background play on Youtube with a subscription.

I believe it's a subscription feature for YouTube Music as well. The link you provided indicates that this requires a YouTube Premium subscription, though a bit more digging on that page and https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/6313552?hl=en suggests that the minimum required subscription is actually YouTube Music Premium (this is included as part of YouTube Premium).

Hah, just like Porsche having an idea of more horsepower for a monthly fee (or pay per fun afternoon's drive) or Musk's self-driving subscription idea, now it's "Pay if you want to be able to browse Instagram while listening to music"/pay if you want to be able to turn your screen off.

Friend of mine who isn't me still downloads MP3s on torrents and has no cloud subscriptions. I'm sure he's smug about this.

I've often wondered about what percent of battery drain on smartphones is directly attributable to this business model choice and therefore exactly how many smartphones have ended up in landfills before they needed to because Google ultimately prioritizes a few dollars over the environment.

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