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Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

layandreas.github.io

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Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#31

Post by rurban »

whitguy wrote: post #23

Regardless of pricing you can't substitute one with the other... Spotify is a streaming service with a massive library. Self hosting means you must BYO media... and, news flash, populating a library with relevant content that rivals Spotify or would satisfy your average user will almost certainly require illegally acquiring said content.

Youtube has much more music than Spotify, is better sorted by Albums (without holes, no skips) and you can easily rip it. It has all the better obscure artists, Spotify delisted.

There's also a recommendation engine via YouTube Music.

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#32

Post by hbn »

cdrnsf wrote: post #2

It's worth the effort to host your own media. There are privacy benefits, you own the audio files (presumably) and are no longer hostage to a platform that cares little (if at all) about artists.

Of all the privacy concerns in my life these days, corporations knowing about my music taste is not cracking the top 1000. In fact Instagram ads have led me to discover some fantastic small artists, so I'll happily give that out to whoever cares.

I'm sure it works fine if you've basically settled on what music you like and never listen to anything new, but if you do like to discover new music, self-hosting just isn't an option.

Or if you follow any contemporary artists who will drop a new single on any given day (which is usually not available for purchase), I much prefer being able to just go into my streaming app and press a button to start listening as opposed to trying to find and rip audio files from the internet and put it on my server and deal with metadata and cover art manually.

Apple Music and YouTube Music also let you upload your own files to a cloud locker and stream them from any device, so even if the platform is missing stuff you can fill it in yourself. Best option IMO

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#34

Post by nonethewiser »

aeturnum wrote: post #29

There are lots of reasons to dislike Spotify but a frustration of mine with the "I ditched Spotify" discourse is that it hides the ball. As this article quietly acknowledges at the end: ditching streaming services either means spending a lot more money or listening to a lot less music. To be clear I think either option is fine, but those seem like the important aspects of the change. If you are going to spend 10x mor…

Well obviously you could just pirate it instead right? Like piracy or not, spending more money or listening to less music are not the only options. Hell you could not pirate it and just listen on youtube - that's another option.

The real cost to self-hosted is time and complexity. But there are all sorts of alternatives to simply not using Spotify anymore - not just self hosting.

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#35

Post by swiftcoder »

DelightOne wrote: post #11
cdrnsf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also commission music from "ghost artists" that they can pay a fix rate, then place said artists in popular playlists to reduce royalty payouts.

Isn't that how every streaming service does it?

Most streaming services commission their own content, yes, but they do so to market original content - Netflix Originals don't pretend to be Wes Anderson movies, and get slid into your playlist when you aren't looking

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#36

Post by jaredcwhite »

Never used Spotify, never will. I also, as a producer, pulled my music off that service a long time ago.

I'm also not very happy with Apple Music anymore either. The lack of UX care regarding the service is noticeable. It suffers from weird bugs and tracks which suddenly won't play all the time. This is not the Apple which lovingly created the first few versions of iTunes.

So I've started to collect a solid collection of lossless music files myself, a combination of CD rips, Bandcamp and Qobuz downloads. And I'm using alternate player software to access them, depending on the platform I happen to use. I don't use any server. I manually sync the music files between canonical storage systems (my iPhone, my Linux desktop, and my Mac desktop). I've even gotten my old iPod Classic out of mothballs and started messing around with it. So much fun!

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#37

Post by wismwasm »

geekamongus wrote: post #5

A couple of points missed for why Spotify is bad: - Paying musicians cheap wages to make boring music (ghost artists) for playlists they promote: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... - Not paying musicians anything at all if they don't have enough streams: https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payo... - Not preventing the deluge of AI-generated music flooding the platform:…

That's true, I looked at it from pure consumerish selfish point of view. I appreciate the idealistic view and caring about artists, but in the end I believe:

- Most people will generally choose what's most convenient for themselves

- Streaming services will only change their ways if they lose customers. Any change they do is A/B tested, so the ads / price increases are definitely in their short term interest. Only when their customers churn because they cannot afford 10 subscriptions anymore or are tired of paying for ads something will change

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#38

Post by DelightOne »

swiftcoder wrote: post #35
DelightOne wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that how every streaming service does it?

Most streaming services commission their own content, yes, but they do so to market original content - Netflix Originals don't pretend to be Wes Anderson movies, and get slid into your playlist when you aren't looking

So if they played a short annoncement beforehand so people know its an Original, it would be fine? Originals get advertised heavily, next-movie, so I assume putting it in the same playlist is fine.

Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner

#39

Post by dpoloncsak »

whitguy wrote: post #23

Regardless of pricing you can't substitute one with the other... Spotify is a streaming service with a massive library. Self hosting means you must BYO media... and, news flash, populating a library with relevant content that rivals Spotify or would satisfy your average user will almost certainly require illegally acquiring said content.

You don't need to rival Spotify's library. How many songs on spotify do you have added to playlists? You just need to purchase those....
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