The playback speed controls UI is a mess, IMO. There are too many elements, which probably nobody uses, taking up valuable space.
The worst part of having all these elements is that when I hold the phone in landscape mode I have to scroll down to reach the "unlink" checkbox. And I have to do this with every video, because the setting is not remembered.
Some of these features, which I'm guessing 95% of people never use (points 1, 3 and 4) could perhaps be enabled in the settings, for those who want them.
BTW, this is how the old speed selector looked like:

What if (in addition to the current speed menu) this was available with "tap and hold", so that you could select one of the preset speeds very quickly?
I think it was a good idea to clean up the playback speed UI, so full ACK from me :)
However a "tap and hold" in general is not a good UI design, as you are hiding features which are not obvious to find.
I would imagine more of a clean-up for the current speed control window. Maybe where you just have a checkbox for changing the pitch and radiobuttons for the speed.
Fast forward during silence -- Sounds nice on paper, but I doubt it gets much use, since most videos don't have unnecessary silence.
I just want to say I love this feature and would be greatly disappointed to see it removed.
I just want to say I love this feature and would be greatly disappointed to see it removed.
I see it similar, I would leave it as an additional checkbox.
4. Fast forward during silence -- Sounds nice on paper, but I doubt it gets much use, since most videos don't have unnecessary silence.
I use NewPipe to listen to podcasts and this always is a handy feature, but forwarding is always just a button push away.
Related : #1536 #1823 #1924
What about instead of "tap and hold" adding extended settings menu button in old menu?
Kinda like this:
That's the current state. I think we can close this

BTW, this is how the old speed selector looked like:
I mean adding option to this menu to open current menu.
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I see it similar, I would leave it as an additional checkbox.