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.
“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.”
both cases you just gather up media files, and you play them. follow me instead for more life hacks.
One of the main advantages of Spotify for me is the AI. I could host the music myself just fine. But having an AI come up custom playlists is another thing entirely.
If you’re not trying to cultivate your own tastes then you’re just letting a corporate blackbox drive your interests and aesthetics.
Like radio then?
Also that always happens. You don’t always discover the best band but you are more likely to discover the ones that spend more on marketing
What am I missing? Whats wrong with Spotify?
- Closed non-federated streaming platform; requires an Internet connection.
- Requires a subscription for a lot of basic functionality.
- Even though it requires a subscription, they barely pay artists - the only ongoing benefit to using a non-pirate setup.
- The increasing amount of “Perfect Fit Content” & LLM-generated music in playlists to avoid said payments.
- They provide a guaranteed platform to political podcasts.
- 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.
- As a platform for mass appeal, discoverability is, loosely speaking, crud.
Pick any of those you like.
Complain about paying artists yet the article is about how they automate piracy lol
Thank you for writing and making content.
In this era, I feel like I’m in the Good Place: it’s impossible to make “good” ethical choices while engaging with modern world. Every day, some platform or artist is found supporting blood money, genocide, unfair labor, treats other artist/collaborators like shit, exploitation… Then we all have to pivot to some obscure alternative with its own issues, lest we be immoral internet users.
I’m so tired of all this shit… /rant
Bit off topic, but I noticed this post has quite more comments than on reddit (currently 59 to 38) and more votes as well. /r/selfhosted is quite crowded usually, kinda impressive there’s more discussion happening here.
Is symfonium foss? Been looking for a good navifrome frontend for android.
It is not free or open source but is software. FWIW I use it and like it. It’s a one time fee and not a subscription service. The fee is under 10 USD. The program requires minimal permissions and doesn’t even ask for (I.e. opt-in) for much more than it really needs to run. I find it relatively intuitive and it works with android auto which is something I really want in a media player/library at the moment.
My hangup with self-hosting is due to the fact that I have a family for whom managing their entire library would be a full-time job. It’s unfortunately worth the $15/month for me to not have to constantly take requests for new music, add that to the server, troubleshoot when things don’t work, etc.
This is how I feel with just my spouse. Spotify absorbs so much ADD energy and immediate new music whiplash that I can’t help but be OK with it.
The alternative is to be up at 4:00am on Oct 13 ripping T-Swizzle MP3s from YT.
I had my partner put in the addresses of my *arr stack into their phone and showed them how to add things they wanted. They never close any tabs so all I need to say is what weird-ass unrelated name handles whatever media they want and I’m done.
Fantastsic post!
FWIW I suspect Jellyfin is the better choice for libraries with both music and movies. That said, we live in a world where multiple FOSS options exist to serve these roles. That should be appreciated and noticed by waaaay more people.
