Nicotine+ is a Soulseek client for music sharing. Its a convenient way to share/download music.
Ummm why not just stream music?
Music streaming platforms are generally awful.
- Poorly made clients (Youtube is extremely laggy for large playlists)
- Limited music collection.
- Poor sound quality
- Not FOSS
- Algorithms recommend music you THINK you would like rather than what is actually kino
Last point is particular strong reason why streaming servies are bad. I found myself discovering much more kino music through browsing a users personal music collection and downloading full albums than I ever did through a DQN. And I'm saving HUNDREDS of dollars a year not subscribing to all these apps that offer an inferior service. Compare this music streaming. Listened to 1 good EDM song? Well lets fill your queue with a 1000 shitty EDM songs. The reality is that there is no good recommendation algorithms in Current Year, most people just tolerate the content served to them out of laziness.
Another nice thing about Nicotine+ is that users often did all the wagie work of downloading covers, setting music metadata, and ensuring all songs are flac/opus. If its not organized, I can always use Beets for mass music file organization.
Why not just download music from Youtube?
Like said above, music on Soulseek is usually already in FLAC. When you find a song you like, you can usually go to the users profile and download the entire album. Nictoine+ is a better user experience than just trying to tinker with yt-dlp
How do I join?
Create an account after downloading the app and share your music folder with others. People download directly from your machine, and you donwload music directly from other people's machine.
What music client should I use?
Don't you care about the musicians???
No
sudo pacman -S nicotine+