What we now call a “music platform” used to fit into a couple of buttons and a Winamp plugin. Napster let people swap tracks like they were just files — because they were just files. RealPlayer stumbled over codecs but, in its own awkward way, could stream too. Music lived out in the open — not inside apps, but in links and IRC chats.
It all felt less like a “product” and more like craft. Streaming wasn’t a business model — it was a gesture. At its core, streaming is a simple technology. No blockchain. No geo-blocks. No CDNs. No recommendation engines. Just a stream, an address, and a bit of intention to share.
Then came the platforms. First they were convenient, then they became inevitable. Listening got easier, discovery got faster — but something got lost in translation. Music became a service with a mood board and a UX optimized for frictionless consumption. Labels were joined by marketers, and suddenly sounding good wasn’t enough. You had to be playlistable, TikTokable, monetizable. Streaming stopped being magic — and turned into a funnel. Polished, predictable, boring.
Against that backdrop, decentralization doesn’t feel like a trend — it feels like instinct. A gut need to take back control: of what plays, where it’s stored, and who owns it. Web3, NFTs, DAOs — they’re all attempts to remember what independence sounds like. Clunky? Sure. Buggy? Absolutely. But no permission screens, no takedowns “on behalf of the rights holder.” Music becomes — again — a flow between people, not a product on a shelf.
We’re experimenting again. Trying to blend the openness of the old web with the tools of the new one. Somewhere along the way we built our own little player — fony.space. It doesn’t try to solve everything or disrupt anything. It just lets you feel music a bit more directly — no ads, no subscriptions, no algorithmic babysitting. Sometimes, all you really need is a stream, an address, and a little desire to share.
w3dada•7mo ago
It all felt less like a “product” and more like craft. Streaming wasn’t a business model — it was a gesture. At its core, streaming is a simple technology. No blockchain. No geo-blocks. No CDNs. No recommendation engines. Just a stream, an address, and a bit of intention to share.
Then came the platforms. First they were convenient, then they became inevitable. Listening got easier, discovery got faster — but something got lost in translation. Music became a service with a mood board and a UX optimized for frictionless consumption. Labels were joined by marketers, and suddenly sounding good wasn’t enough. You had to be playlistable, TikTokable, monetizable. Streaming stopped being magic — and turned into a funnel. Polished, predictable, boring.
Against that backdrop, decentralization doesn’t feel like a trend — it feels like instinct. A gut need to take back control: of what plays, where it’s stored, and who owns it. Web3, NFTs, DAOs — they’re all attempts to remember what independence sounds like. Clunky? Sure. Buggy? Absolutely. But no permission screens, no takedowns “on behalf of the rights holder.” Music becomes — again — a flow between people, not a product on a shelf.
We’re experimenting again. Trying to blend the openness of the old web with the tools of the new one. Somewhere along the way we built our own little player — fony.space. It doesn’t try to solve everything or disrupt anything. It just lets you feel music a bit more directly — no ads, no subscriptions, no algorithmic babysitting. Sometimes, all you really need is a stream, an address, and a little desire to share.