Maybe rather than talking about federating everything on the web, we need to talk about federating what, and how.
In an interview with Simon Vansintjan from Mirlo, he talks about anyone with an account on their platform can create a music blog. It would be great to be able to subscribe to one of those blogs via ActivityPub, and get a notification in nu fediverse account whenever they publish new post.
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The function that allows people to search Mirlo could also be federated over AP, so people on BandWagon or FunkWhale sites can find artists, albums, songs etc hosted on Mirlo, and maybe vice-versa.
Both Mirlo and BandWagon support payments to support artists or buy mercy, so it would be awesome to have that federated too. So a person browsing on BandWagon can seamlessly stumble on an album they like hosted on Mirlo, make a payment, and download it.
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"What does it look like to do something like @mirlo on a local basis? What if there is a, like, a DC Mirlo, where people build community in DC around these things. But it's also a way to pool money, right? ...
Right now we take a 7% cut. But what if that was optional ... so musicians chose, and what if that 7% went into a pool that ...we're using to buy a music venue, that is accountable to musicians."
#SimonVansintjan, 2025
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Artists can set it whatever percentage fee they want for the platform :)
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@mirlo Awesome. I love the idea of dogfooding. Do you could have a Mirlo account on Mirlo, where people who can can afford to help fund the platform can subscribe?
Maybe you could do compilations as fundraisers, so artists can offer tracks as a contribution to the financial sustainability of the platform? Sold on the Mirlo account on Mirlo. Could also help the featured artists get their music into new ears.
You can support us here https://mirlo.space/team/support
And you can check out our current compilation album here3
Folks (bandwagon, jam, etc) are getting together to build those kind of standards on this platform: https://the.socialmusic.network/
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Your chat about creating a network of local Mirlos, pooling funds to create shared facilities for local musicians, reminds me of a proposal I wrote about 20 years ago for a network of what I called Independent Sound Centres;
https://web.archive.org/web/20050310191646/http://strypey.orcon.net.nz/indymusic.html
Ideally you'd want them to be federated with each other, so listeners can search for music and artists regionally, nationally and globally, as well as locally. Network effects!
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They wouldn't all have to be Mirlo instances either, right? Local groups could decide an instances of BandWagon or FunkWhale meets their needs, or even something techy members of their group create locally. As long as an open federation protocol is used, they could all interact to form a shared music platform.
There's a range of protocols that could be used. But if it's ActivityPub, music videos hosted on PeerTube instances, live-to-airs streamed on OwnCast, etc, could all be part of it.
"What's the best way to support musicians in your community? Which can be international ...but it can and should be local."
#SimonVansintjan, 2025
The podcast host picks up the idea, talking about cooperatively-owned practice space and recording studio spaces. The whole episode is well worth a listen.
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This is a bonfire demo instance for testing purposes
