I pay for YouTube Premium and I have an alt app on my phone because the user experience is just better. You're supposed to have background play in the regular YouTube app, but videos regularly pause until you return to the yt app to reload.

It all worked perfectly fine back on my iPod touch, pre-premium bs. Tech is regressing.

I'm on a family plan (cheap) and I use it for the music player for the inevitable question of why I'm doing this.