Everyone complains about Spotify, yet everyone uses Spotify.
Meanwhile, RSS — the open, creator-friendly protocol that has powered podcasts for more than two decades — is sitting there like an unused superpower.
So why isn’t music distributed well over RSS?
And why aren’t Fountain or Wavlake the revolution we hoped for?
Because RSS is perfect for freedom, but unsuitable for proper music distribution.
Spotify gives listeners: • search • discovery • artist pages • playlists • stats • recommendations • frictionless UX
RSS, by contrast, gives creators… an XML file.
Great for ownership. Awful for user experience.
That’s why musicians stay on Spotify: listeners never left it.
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Where Fountain and Wavlake fit in?
These apps took podcast infrastructure and stretched it toward music.
They stream audio from RSS feeds, then add Nostr features on top — zaps, boosts, comments.
It’s clever, it’s promising, and it’s absolutely the right direction.
And yes, they do show something like an artist page — but it’s still a podcast-style profile, not a true music-native artist page.
What’s missing? • no album hierarchy • no discography model • no track-level metadata (ISRC, credits, roles) • no royalty splits • no music discovery layer • no native grouping of singles / EPs / LPs
Close to the future — but not quite the future.
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What’s missing?
A new standard: RSS 3.0 for music.
Imagine an open music feed that finally understands how music actually works:
RSS 3.0 Music Spec: • ISRC • credits & roles • lyrics • artwork • stems • structured discography • split payments • LNURL for instant payouts • artist pubkeys • real track/album hierarchy
Then imagine Nostr as the distribution and discovery layer: • follows • reposts • playlists • comments • zaps • personalized discovery feeds
And imagine that the audio itself stays under your control: S3, Backblaze, your own server, IPFS — whatever you choose.
The money arrives instantly over Lightning. The social layer lives on Nostr. The catalogue belongs to you, not to a corporation.
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The bottom line?
Fountain and Wavlake are important prototypes.
They point in the right direction.
But the real breakthrough — a Spotify-class music experience built on RSS + Nostr + Bitcoin — hasn’t been created yet.
Call it RSS 3.0. The music internet we should have built from the start.
