Are there any apps for listening to music similar to Spotify, but decentralized?
Spotify, being a centralized platform, acts as an intermediary between creators and musicians on the one hand and listeners on the other.
This means that it holds great power, especially with respect to artists, and retains a substantial part of the revenue for itself.
A decentralized music streaming platform, on the other hand, would not require intermediaries and would directly connect artists with listeners, eliminating the two problems mentioned above.
In reality, some time ago Spotify itself bought a blockchain startup, Mediachain, but this was not an effort towards decentralization.
Mediachain is simply a peer-to-peer database based on blockchain for sharing information between different applications and organizations, used in particular in the music industry to ensure that artists are paid fairly, thanks to the registration of their copyright clauses on smart contracts.
It’s worth mentioning that Spotify is one of the members of the Libra Association, which means that it is a very active company in the crypto sector. However, it is still a centralized platform.
A first alternative to Spotify is Emanate (formerly Choon), a music streaming platform that uses the blockchain to pay artists in a more fair and timely manner.
Some artists, such as Tala, Darude and Guy J for example, are already able to collect a larger share of their music streaming revenue.
Choon is based on Ethereum’s decentralized blockchain and uses smart contracts that give artists 80% of the total revenue. In addition, payments are made almost in real-time, i.e. daily, and it allows running crowdfunding campaigns.
Another similar case is Musicoin, a music streaming platform based on blockchain that allows the transparent and secure transfer of music in peer-to-peer mode. It also has its own token, MUSIC, thanks to which it is able to allocate 100% of streaming revenue to artists.
There is also eMusic, a decentralized music distribution platform similar to the previous two, which also allows artists to reward fans with exclusive content, promotional incentives and cheaper prices than other similar services.
Audius, on the other hand, is exactly like a decentralized alternative to Spotify, partly because it is a project supported by some big names in the international music industry.
This list should also mention DLive, which despite not being a streaming platform for music, but videos, is one of the most successful online streaming projects on blockchain to date.
After all, just as YouTube has also become a music streaming platform over time, it’s not unreasonable to think that over time DLive could also use its success to establish itself in the music market.
There isn’t yet a decentralized music streaming platform that has established itself as a reference point in this market, as is the case with Spotify among the centralized platforms, so the future may bring many new developments in this specific area.
This means that there is ample room for new players, especially if they already have a solid business activity and a good number of users.
