Before anyone says it: yes, I know about Funkwhale.
Funkwhale is great, but what I’m imagining is slightly different.
I’m not just talking about a platform where users upload their own music, but something closer to how YouTube Music actually works. Artists would upload their own music and videos, either to a shared instance or to their own instance, and listeners could then stream them across the fediverse.
Something similar to how Peertube, Lemmy, Pixelfed, Mastodon, etc work.
One of the big appeals of YouTube Music (at least IMO) is that since it runs off YouTube, you get an absolutely wild mix of content. Official tracks, obscure uploads, forgotten demos, weird one-off videos, hyper-niche stuff that would never exist on Spotify or Apple Music.
The closest alternative to it would be SoundCloud, but even then, SC is more underground music scene.
In theory, I could imagine a potential federated alternative that hooks into PeerTube. Maybe users log in with their PeerTube account or instance, and music-focused instances federate with video-focused ones.
Something like “PeerTube Music” or a dedicated ActivityPub music service that interoperates with PeerTube.
Obviously, you’re not going to get big-name artists right away (or maybe ever), but that’s true of basically every fediverse project at the start. You’d still get regular users, indie artists, experimental musicians, archive uploads, and all the strange internet music culture that YouTube Music accidentally preserves.
Curious what people here think:
Could PeerTube realistically be extended in this direction?
Is it feasible with current ActivityPub tooling?
Are there projects I’m missing that already aim for this, beyond Funkwhale?
Or does Funkwhale already cover more of this than I’m giving it credit for?
Interested to hear thoughts.
I would love to help with something like this, but, unfortunately, I lack the time and energy.
The closest thing I can think of, is Soulseek.
You can find almost anything on there. People share their entire collections, and almost everyone has some niche stuff they like.
I’ve spent hours exploring other people’s curated libraries, finding stuff I’ve never heard.
I don’t see how this would work financially, tho. Soulseek doesn’t make anyone money, except when i go out of my way to buy something on qobuz or bandcamp when I really like something.
Music is art. Like visual artists, it’s simple enough for one or a couple people to produce, but unlike visual art, it’s less commonly done on comission. Which means freely sharing your music, doesn’t typically put food on the table.
Hence, musicians sell albums or singles. Preferably directly to their fans. Souncloud, YT, and Soulseek regularly help me find new artists I like… But for actual listening I pull up Symfonium, hooked up to my Jellyfin server, serving my carefully curated personal collection.