59
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
59 points (100.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
41018 readers
2001 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
8) No Bots.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Explicitly not answering the question you asked, but I think anyone considering not paying money for streaming services should consider going back to getting MP3s and CDs. And maybe you've considered it, but for everyone who hasn't:
You can download everything using Soulseek if you have access to a router.
For hardware, you can start with your phone, but because battery life is often an issue and so is space, you'll probably want a good MP3 player. Cheapest good one I've found is Fiio Snowsky Echo Mini which you can get direct from manufacturer on Ali Baba. You can use it with BT but it's very flakey, so I usually listen through wired speakers.
I don't have access to a router, so don't use SoulSeek, but rip CDs from the library and find treasures for 20 cents at the thrift stores. For one off songs, I use NewPipe to download YouTube videos.
That said, as far as streaming services go, music streaming is the least objectionable. You do have an amazing library. I got off of it mostly because I'm cheap and I also think having immediate access to every song ever written kind of music a valueless commodity in my mind.
Buying drm free music is a good long term plan. You build a library you can share with friends and family.
If you want to look at mp3 players, they are also called DAPs for Digital Audio Player. There are a few options nowadays. Some are touch screen android devices, some are more simple with button controls and some can be loaded with Rockbox. The Echo mini is a little limited, but works pretty well. They came out with the Echo at some point which seems a little better made. If you go that route, keep an eye on fiio's website. They've made some interesting updates to the firmware over time.
Yes, I'm trying to bait the hook as deliciously as possible, but i admit if someone can't deal with any kind of technical friction and hate learning anything, this probably is not the hobby for them.
I still make my popcorn in a pan with oil.
People miss the value of streaming music.
For films and TV, it's simple to get what you want when you want it. People dont watch films back to back on recommendations. But being able to have access to millions upon millions of songs and have them play randomly is something you cannot get with self-hosting easily. It's a great way to discover new music and there's a lot of value in that.
I'd only recommend self-hosting music if you literally only ever listen to the same 3 albums and are too stubborn to try new music. Or you are cheap!
Not true. I self host my music, which is what got me into homelabbing in the first place. I have 7 months+ playtime of music, and a pipeline for finding new recommended content with it. And i get the benefit of not having my music removed when license deals expire or never existed. And my random play actually randomizes instead of whatever profit optimized engine Spotify pretends to be "random" playing, so I actually hear new stuff. And I have playlists that can have more than 10k songs, but I dont even need those because I have smart playlists, including ones set up to only play things i havent ever listened to. I wouldnt ever go back
This comment makes absolutely zero sense.
Confidently incorrect
I will say it’s generally easier to find a movie than it is some music. But the music that’s harder to find is probably some hipster band on band camp. So you can just give them money almost directly.
Also I listen to a lot more songs in one day than watch movies.
This comment makes absolutely zero sense.
Confidently incorrect
This comment absolutely resonates with me. I selfhost Jellyfin but I am super happy with streaming via Tidal for this exact reason. It seems people consume media differently.
Actually, being able to listen to anything at any time has made me more distanced from music because I have stopped learning about artists and just used the Spotify "radio" of artists I knew from before Spotify.
After I cancelled Spotify I but buy stuff from Qobuz and Bandcamp, and I really consider before buying. Cheap self-published stuff I usually buy without thinking, but anything that has a label I only buy if I'm more sure about it.
I mostly buy albums which had also the advantage that I get to know an artist more deeply rather than just knowing their 5 most popular songs that appear in Spotify radios. Also, albums often have a theme or story that give them some personality that Spotify radios don't have. Arguably you can also listen to full albums on Spotify, but somehow I never ended up doing that.
Another advantage of at least Bandcamp is that you can filter artists by genre and country or region, which helps discover artists from cultural contexts you are interested in. That's one feature I love it for. Because this way I can find artists that I could actually see live one day, and I understand their music better because I know better where their perspective is coming from.
I am cheap, which is probably the motivating factor, but I think there is a real downside to infinitely available music.
Analogy: Attractive people dating online can have trouble starting a real relationship because they are always thinking, "Maybe I can do better."
I think it can be the same with music. If all you are asking yourself is, "Does this music immediately trigger pleasure in me?" you are ultimately chasing shallow high after shallow high. And once you are in that state of mind, you have an insatiable demmand for more music, music all the time, different music.
But there is a deeper experience you can have, when you listen to a CD for a week because it's in the CD player of your car and by the time you realize it, you're already on the highway and can't change it. You start to notice the little details, you start to appreciate the music even though it's not what you're into. And in doing so, you grow musically.
On the production side of it, I think there's also kind of a severe rot that might settle in when you're trying to chase people that will give you literally 3-seconds of their time before skipping, and that will change the music if they aren't constantly being pleasured or if they hear anything the slightest bit unfamiliar.
Since nobody has made an investment in the music, nobody is willing to give anything different a chance, and it just drives musicians away from making music and into making muzak, music that is just engaging enough, but never takes risks.
That seems like a very unique and specifically-you scenario. I don't think most people treat music as a competition like that, either on the consumption or creation sides.
Rick Beato is a good source for this. He's an experienced music producer, sound engineer, and musician who has been around for decades. When he's done shaking his fist at the clouds, he has has a lot of good commentary on the impacts of infinite, on-demmand music has had on the industry.
Funny how having a bunch of mp3 in your phone or mp3 player is now called self hosting.
I discover 2000 artists with no algorithm. I it is not that hard blogs exists, but I collaboration between artists exists, and warez website still exists with many obscure artists
I don't know about self hosting but many local players can generate playlists for you
Streaming is moving more and more to "access to millions upon millions of songs and have them play randomly is something you cannot get". Sure the streamlining library may have millions and millions of songs. However they do everything by a very limited playlist and so you get the same 50 songs.