What I'm getting from this is that I will be hearing many more ads, and be unable to listen to podcasts if my screen is off or if I switch to any other apps on my phone.
Yeah, for now. I used to be able to split my screen and have YouTube running in the background while in other apps, until they took that away in an update.
As a free user on Android, I'm able to use YT in PiP mode with any non-music video. Also FWIW, I doubt YT Music will ever have enough monopolistic control over the podcast industry to take away such fundamental functionality.
> The company notes that all users can listen to podcasts on-demand, offline, in the background, and while casting