Letting everyone queue songs — a shared jukebox
When people get together, one person always ends up being the DJ. Passing a phone around is awkward, and the music stops whenever that person steps away.
The usual approaches and their limits
Passing the phone around is the simplest, but Bluetooth has to reconnect each time and the music cuts out.
A collaborative playlist means everyone signs into the same account or gets edit rights. That means touching someone else's account settings — most people would rather not.
One person taking requests works, but that person is stuck holding their phone all night.
Separate the player from the requesters
The better shape is one device that plays and many devices that queue. Sound comes from one place; everyone requests from their own phone.
Bluetooth connects once, and the music does not stop when someone leaves. Tracks play in the order they were added, so nobody argues about whose turn it is.
The key constraint: only one device may play. If several play at once, the queue drains several times faster than it should.
Practical caveats
Some videos block external playback — the label disabled embedding. Unless those are skipped automatically, playback stops dead on them.
Free playback inserts ads. If the playing device is signed into YouTube Premium, it stays clean.
Playback stops when the screen turns off. A YouTube video embedded in a web page is suspended by the browser the moment the screen locks or you switch apps. Background playback is a paid Premium feature and cannot be worked around. Plan on the device staying awake in a cradle.
In a commercial venue — a bar, a café — performance and copyright licensing is a separate matter you have to settle yourself. No tool handles that for you.
That is exactly how the Jukebox in Playlist Manager is built — create a room, share the link, everyone picks from their own playlists, and one device plays the queue in order, skipping blocked videos automatically. Playlist Manager →