The phrase refers to the act of acquiring audio files from the YouTube platform without incurring any financial cost. This commonly involves utilizing third-party software or websites to extract the audio stream from a YouTube video and save it to a user’s device in a format such as MP3.
The desire to obtain audio content from the video-sharing platform stems from various reasons, including offline listening convenience, the creation of personal music libraries, and the potential circumvention of subscription-based music streaming services. Historically, this practice gained traction with the rise of broadband internet access and the proliferation of user-generated content on video-sharing websites.