Breaking it down simply — youTube is making a popular feature that was exclusive to Premium subscribers free for all people globally. The feature in question is YouTube’s picture-in-picture (PiP) mode, which lets you watch videos in the background. It’s something that YouTube Premium subscribers have enjoyed for a long time, but can now be experienced by everyone. This was first made free in the US, and it will now be available to all people globally on Android and iOS.

YouTube PiP is free globally

YouTube has announced that its picture-in-picture (PiP) mode is set to become available for free to all people globally soon. This feature has been exclusive to YouTube Premium people who can watch any video in the background. It was made free first for people in the US, and now people around the world will be able to access it in the coming months. Apps like Netflix also offer PiP mode, but it’s a strictly subscription-based platform and for movies and TV shows, so the comparison might not be fair. But YouTube also has several channels that showcase film content.

PiP basically lets you shrink the YouTube video that you’re watching into a smaller player even after you leave the app. So, you can let the video play in the background while using your phone normally. You can enable PiP by simply swiping up or tapping the home button to exit the app.

There are some limitations to this, though. While PiP has been made free, this feature can be used only for long-form and non-music content on YouTube. The same applies to YouTube Premium Lite as well. You would still need a YouTube Premium subscription to watch music videos in PiP mode.

YouTube enjoys the monopoly of its platform, so it doesn’t really need to pull in more people. But it’s still good to see YouTube expand one key premium feature to people without a subscription. This may encourage people to move to YouTube Premium for more flexibility and access to ad-free content.

This feature is set to become available to all YouTube people globally in the coming months. So, if PiP is something you’ve been wanting to use, then you don’t need a YouTube subscription. That said, if you want to use PiP for music content, don’t want ads, and want to download videos, then you can get a YouTube Premium subscription, which begins at Rs 149 per month in the country.