Replacing Music Streaming Services with a Self-hosted Stack
blog.nfreak.tv
Replacing TV and movie streaming services is pretty trivial, and typically one of the first projects for any new self-hoster, but music streaming services are a whole different beast. There's a growing need to replace the likes of Spotify, but there's no one-size-fits-all solution, and maintaining an on-disk music library

Full disclosure, I’m pretty new to selfhosting myself, and I haven’t written a guide like this before, but hopefully this scatterbrained writeup is enough for someone out there lmao

This is just what works for me and how I set it up. Always open to ideas for improvement as well.

  • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
    362·
    4 days ago
    1. Closed non-federated streaming platform; requires an Internet connection.
    2. Requires a subscription for a lot of basic functionality.
    3. Even though it requires a subscription, they barely pay artists - the only ongoing benefit to using a non-pirate setup.
    4. The increasing amount of “Perfect Fit Content” & LLM-generated music in playlists to avoid said payments.
    5. They provide a guaranteed platform to political podcasts.
    6. Audio quality is not only dependent on the subscription, but even the top-tier is generally subpar and can vary based on how they throttle you that day.
    7. As a platform for mass appeal, discoverability is, loosely speaking, crud.

    Pick any of those you like.

    • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      91·
      3 days ago

      All the above points are valid except for this

      requires an Internet connection.

      You can easily download for offline listening with spotify. Even piracy will require internet connection for later offline consumption, and getting music from physical media is way more work than most realistically want to do today.

      • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
        1·
        3 days ago

        Discoverability is a difficult challenge in a pirate context, imo. Last.fm still exists, so do bandcamp and soundcloud. Pandora, Soma.FM, and both terrestrial and internet radio can still work if you find the right genre. The other options include going to your local library, and your local media store of choice.

        Another one that works is finding out the songwriters, producers, and engineers on your favorite songs/albums and tracking down their discography. Often enough, you’ll find similar-sounding music by tracking the tech guys.

    • mudkip@lemdro.idEnglish
      52·
      3 days ago

      Complain about paying artists yet the article is about how they automate piracy lol

      • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
        62·
        3 days ago

        I mean, I did offer it as one of over a half-dozen reasons. And my opinion is just that you shouldn’t go halfway. If you’re going to pay a subscription, the artists and staff ought to get paid. Otherwise, go full pirate and if you want to support an artist, find a way to do so directly, without platforms or labels.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      22·
      3 days ago

      Do we really need a federated streaming platform??

      Musicbrainz is also not federated, neither is wikipedia.