Introducing: Fountain Radio 🎶⚡️ - radio.fountain.fm

Fountain Radio is a community station for music - powered by Bitcoin. Discover new music, support the artists directly, queue your favourite tracks and chat to other listeners.

In the last year, artists have started publishing their music to RSS feeds with embedded Bitcoin Lightning Addresses so that fans can support them directly as they listen on apps like Fountain.
Under the value for value system, music is made freely available everywhere and fans can pay as much or as little as they want. This gives independent artists the opportunity to earn much more than the $0.003 they get for every stream on Spotify.
This model may well be the answer to the problematic streaming royalties system used today in the music industry. However, the music still needs to be discovered by listeners before they begin to see payments come through.
Many of these artists are getting exposure when their tracks are featured in music podcasts, or make their way into various charts. However we still need more discovery tools to help new releases reach a large audience and showcase the diverse catalogue of music out there waiting to be found.

We built Fountain Radio to help great music get discovered and give the community a place to enjoy it together.
  • For Artists - Fountain Radio is the ideal launchpad for your music. Add your tracks to the queue, find supporters and build deeper connections with fans.
  • For Listeners - Fountain Radio is the perfect companion for a day at the office. Discover new music, support the artists directly, queue your favourite tracks and chat to other listeners.

How it Works

  • Log in with your Fountain account on desktop or mobile. You can also log in with Nostr using the Alby browser extension.
  • Listen to the track currently playing and boost to support. Fountain takes a 1% split and the rest goes to the artist.
  • Add a track to the queue for 100 sats. You can search for any track in Podcast Index.
  • Upvote tracks to move them to the front of the queue. The track with the most sats will play next.
  • Save your favourite tracks to your Fountain library. Listen to your latest discoveries again in the Fountain app.
  • Join the live chat and hang out with other listeners and artists. You can post in the chat for free and see all recent activity.

Want to add your music to Fountain Radio?

Upload your tracks via Wavlake or RSS Blue to push your music out to the world via rss and start earning sats from your fans.
this territory is moderated
920 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 29 Feb
Very clean 👌
Great job @MerryOscar and Fountain team 👏👏
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Looks smooth, is fountain coming for wavlake’s lunch?
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we couldn't have built this without wavlake onboarding artists - we're working together towards the same end goal!
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The future of music is here!
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🎶 ⚡️
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241 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 29 Feb
great idea, will give it a try now!
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Thanks Kevin!
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It's really nice. I just tried it out.
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Thanks! Let me know if there's anything you think we're missing / didn't get right?
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105 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff 29 Feb
Inspiring how much you guys have put into this. Well done.
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Whoa! I know what my soundtrack's going to be at work tomorrow!
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it's been great having it on all day
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Decentralized music for the decentralized ears. You are doing a wonderful job by taking it to the next level. @MerryOscar
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I love fountain! This is so cool, let’s go!
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very cool.
btw, am I blind or is there no volume adjustment?
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no volume adjustment we just leave it to the device volume
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oh ok, on mobile makes sense. on desktop, i would argue it is a good ui to have it
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Ok, I've watched the little intro video now and I dislike what's going on with this app even more.
Firstly, they are misrepresenting themselves as 'community radio'. No fucking way are they 'community radio'. Fountain is a corporate entity, backed by Venture Capital, including dodgy Mr Pompliano, who will want their payout and continuing revenue stream.
And fees, fees, fees. Fees to 'boost' a track. Fees to add a track to the queue. It's a return to payola radio. And as I've previously pointed out, poxy fees for a 'premium subscription'.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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if you don't charge a fee for adding tracks to the queue then artists can just add themselves for free and it defeats the point
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Interesting, thanks for providing source. Fee is 1%. If a lower fee is possible, or a better model, the market should be able to provide it.
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Fountain takes a 1% split and the rest goes to the artist
No thanks. I want a system that is fully decentralised, and where my relationship is directly with the artist and all money goes to them, not with some cut (and control) going to a third party. Sure, you're much better than the existing intermediaries in terms of cut taken but you're still setting yourself up using the same business model (including having a poxy 'Premium service' subscription fee). I want fully decentralised, P2P music streaming and tipping, and I think that will be coming soon.
#NeverOnAServer
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You will be the only user in your utopia, listening to your own music. Learn to understand compromise.
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No, I will end up with everyone in my 'utopia' because ppl don't like third parties interposing themselves, taking a cut and exerting some level of control.
Exactly the same story as Bitcoin. Ppl always end up preferring decentralisation when it is available (even if they take a circuitous trip to get there and take some time to perceive its value). Fountain is carrying across fiat thinking and thus is destined to fail and die.
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It's perfectly reasonable to pay a little bit to support the app you're using. It beats having a free app that sells your data to make ends meet.
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Depends what you are paying for. With Fountain you are paying to install yet another (wannabe) middle man and a new centralised platform. Once they reach a certain amount of market share (or, as I guess they are dreaming of, dominant market share) there will be nothing to stop them from jacking up their fees and decreasing the payout percentage to artists. Right now they're doing the usual VC play of making it attractive to new users with lowish fees to get growth and spruiking false 'community' talk and hyping buzzwords (bitcoin, lightning, etc). Just because you use cool technologies (and obviously we all agree here that bitcoin & lighting are cool) doesn't make your centralised platform cool.
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How is it a centralized platform? They're pulling in music from wavlake/RSS and taking a small cut for using the app, just like they do with podcasts. If you want direct access, there will surely be a FOSS listener that doesn't take any cut (and will suck because there's no funding)
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This is something i was looking for for almost a year now ! Thank you
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Was in talks with y'all about claiming (EA) Eternal Affairs TRUTH Radio. Can you get back in touch please? I wish to revisit this. I don't remember what I have to do to get it claimed! Thank you!
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Wow. This is awesome. The future is so bright, I might actually want some shades.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @td 1 Mar
Great to see this kind of decentralization and micropayments gaining pace.
I am sure in 2/3/5/10 years' time we could never have imagined it otherwise.
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Hi @MerryOscar. We're changing things up in the music territory when it comes to what we as a space can offer in terms of advertising.
Utilising the Pin function to ensure your post stays visible for longer, would this be something of interest to yourself and the fountain team when it comes to advertising your brand and product in this space? If so, feel free to reach out to me and we can discuss how best to facilitate your needs.
Thanks Public_N_M_E
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Do listeners also earn sats somehow?
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Excellent initiative, enjoy it, thanks for the information
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This podcast is amaaaaazing
Great explain.
Yep, nice content there
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