I can only speak from experience on my Samsung S23, but most media apps will display a notification when playing media and for a short amount of time while it’s paused, but then automatically it will disappear after a short period of time. Most media apps do this and it’s probably to conserve battery which I understand and appreciate, but it’s also somewhat annoying because I want to pick up where I left off easily and not have to open the app again to do so.
Apple Music on Android seems to do this well - the notification stays around indefinitely until I swipe it away or exit the app. I’d kinda like it to be like that.
Would it be possible to have a toggleable option that does that? I respect that my use-case isn’t necessarily desired by all but maybe some would appreciate it?
I suspect this involves it acting like a foreground service even when it isn’t, which would likely take more battery so it shouldn’t default to on, but it’d be amazing to have it as an option for those that would like that behaviour? (or is it just me? 
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What happens if you unlock the screen and swipe down? Don’t you see a playbar there for any active media players?
Although mostly I just use the playback controls on whatever earbuds/phones or speaker I am using.
No, the notification is completely gone and only appears again if I open the app again and start playing media. So if I listen to a podcast then pause playback, do something else, then 10 minutes later I can’t just press play from the notification because its gone. Hardware buttons don’t work either, because the phone sees the media service as closed. Ive tried making power saving not affect the app and told my phone not to put it in sleep mode or anything but nothing helps.
As mentioned, Apple Music doesn’t have this problem. But I think they keep the app as a foreground service even if its not actually playing anything and that keeps it alive. But I don’t know for sure.
Check the Persistent playback controls option. Enabling that should cause AntennaPod to remain in the notification pulldown when paused, though it won’t necessarily work after ten minutes. (As you point out, keeping an app active while it’s not actually being used won’t necessarily work.)
Yeah that setting is enabled and yeah as you pointed out it won’t stay active after a little while. But I also know that apps can do this, as Apple Music shows, so it’d be really really nice if it could be considered (and configurable for those who don’t want such a thing)