4 ms·

IMO, PeerTube will never become popular due to its decentralized nature.

by richardARPANET 6y ago

john4532452 6y ago
Why ? What are the premises that leads to your conclusion ?
- TheCapeGreek 6y ago
  Not OP, but having tried PeerTube just to see what it was about, just the usability is a pain. There's a lot of foreign language content that clogged up my front page and I'm not even in Europe for some elementary locale checking to try and match content. Then of course, decentralised streaming in this way is incredibly slow and has the same pitfalls as torrents: If there aren't any/enough peers you're screwed or just generally going to have a really bad time.
  - ziml77 6y ago
    Having no peers with the content you are looking for is the worst problem. Unpopular videos will just disappear.
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  In short, if I challenge my mother to "Go to PeerTube and watch the video of a Panda falling over", she would not be able to do it.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Google "peertube", click the first link, put "panda falling over" in the search field - how is that different from YouTube? (Including the first step - lots of older people Google YouTube to go to YouTube) The problem is the next step because there is no video of a panda falling over, but that's not related to the peertube implementation or UX.
    - wccrawford 6y ago
      I did that, and the "first link" is "join peer tube", with no search field. Even when I eventually find peertube.ch (Which I guess is right, because there are a ton of links on joinpeertube to other "instances") there's no videos with pandas at all there, though I don't actually know if this example was intended to be possible. I do not think my parents would pass this test, even if the video existed.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        Fair enough. I'm using ddg and the first link is to https://peer.tube/ https://peer.tube/
feralimal 6y ago
Centralised platforms have utterly failed us though, and have become a way to manage information centrally - someone decides what you can or can't see/read/know about. Decentralised is really the only option for an informed humanity. In the long run, this has to be the answer.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > Decentralised is really the only option for an informed humanity. In the long run, this has to be the answer. that implies that "an informed humanity" is something that society wants. I really doubt that.
  - feralimal 6y ago
    'Society' is not a real thing, even if people treat it as one. Society does not like or dislike, cannot be informed or uninformed. It is just a collective term. Like government. Its a figment in people's imagination, a term, or an idea - brought to life only because we in aggregate believe it to be true and act as if it is. Personally, I don't consider these ideas to have substance in the way they are presented. The reality, is that 'society' is made up of individuals. Individuals are substantially real. Individuals need to choose for themselves whether they want to be informed or not, according to their conscience. Individuals should also step out of other people's business, ie stop trying to manage 'society'! But that's another story.
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  I'm not sure it's due to the technical setup of the platforms. But rather that they're all built in SV and/or are controlled by monopolies that are the problem. Myself and a few people are actually working on a video site with freedom of speech values and grandma level usability, feel free to follow along (https://project49476.com/ https://project49476.com/).
- mFixman 6y ago
  Even in the best case scenario where everyone starts using different instances of Peertube, won't it end like 2012 Reddit full of racist and paedophile instances? You need a minimum amount of moderation to remove the least desirable groups of people from posting content.
avhon1 6y ago
It doesn't have to be popular in order to be successful, or worthwhile.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Some day, we're going to have services with 6 billion users. I don't think that will be a good day. As a consultant I have frequently been in a situation where each member of 'my' team was only outnumbered about 6:1 by the customer. That can be directly managed. As a business owner, I can afford to have a personal relationship with a few percent of my customers. I can cherry pick. As a medium application developer, each of my employees might represent 1000 users, and even zone defense starts to crumble. I have to start treating them as numbers, and that causes new types of problems. I see the sorts of compromises we often have to make at hundreds of thousands of users, and I'm grateful that most of the verticals I'm interested in wouldn't ever have 600 million users, let alone ten times that much. There are verticals where form and function are tightly aligned, and I think those can scale much higher. Torrents and Discord, off the top of my head, I think resemble that remark. Infrastructure like nginx or Consul, maybe. Linux... well, it's 5 million lines of code so it might be 'failing' in that manner. Reddit, on the other hand... I'm glad I'm not responsible for Reddit because I'd probably hate myself half as much as my users claim to. Some comedian had a bit years ago about how he wanted to be 'Bruce Campbell famous'. This is a guy who is a god in a niche. If he wants his ego stoked, he just needs to be in the right room, and he can make that room happen just by asking for it. Meanwhile he can go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and there is a reasonable expectation that he might get to eat in peace. I think I could deal with that level of success.
fsflover 6y ago
Like email?
hinkley 6y ago
Define popular. There is a huge field between 'sustainable' and 'populist' and if we want choice and quality in the world we need to vote with our feet and dollars and ballots for alternative solutions that are big enough for people to not giggle at, but small enough that they can maintain some conceptual coherence. We need an 'Apple' (a 10% competitor that has enough quality and mindshare to go on for years or decades) in lots of verticals if we want to keep a market place for new ideas. Better still if we had a 5% and a 10% alternative. The 10% guy you have to watch and emulate. The 5% guy you can audit occasionally looking for ideas to cherry pick. The 85% still benefit from what the 15% are doing.

IMO, PeerTube will never become popular due to its decentralized nature.

john4532452 6y ago

Why ? What are the premises that leads to your conclusion ?

TheCapeGreek 6y ago
Not OP, but having tried PeerTube just to see what it was about, just the usability is a pain. There's a lot of foreign language content that clogged up my front page and I'm not even in Europe for some elementary locale checking to try and match content. Then of course, decentralised streaming in this way is incredibly slow and has the same pitfalls as torrents: If there aren't any/enough peers you're screwed or just generally going to have a really bad time.
- ziml77 6y ago
  Having no peers with the content you are looking for is the worst problem. Unpopular videos will just disappear.
richardARPANET 6y ago
In short, if I challenge my mother to "Go to PeerTube and watch the video of a Panda falling over", she would not be able to do it.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Google "peertube", click the first link, put "panda falling over" in the search field - how is that different from YouTube? (Including the first step - lots of older people Google YouTube to go to YouTube) The problem is the next step because there is no video of a panda falling over, but that's not related to the peertube implementation or UX.
  - wccrawford 6y ago
    I did that, and the "first link" is "join peer tube", with no search field. Even when I eventually find peertube.ch (Which I guess is right, because there are a ton of links on joinpeertube to other "instances") there's no videos with pandas at all there, though I don't actually know if this example was intended to be possible. I do not think my parents would pass this test, even if the video existed.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Fair enough. I'm using ddg and the first link is to https://peer.tube/ https://peer.tube/

feralimal 6y ago

Centralised platforms have utterly failed us though, and have become a way to manage information centrally - someone decides what you can or can't see/read/know about. Decentralised is really the only option for an informed humanity. In the long run, this has to be the answer.

jcelerier 6y ago
> Decentralised is really the only option for an informed humanity. In the long run, this has to be the answer. that implies that "an informed humanity" is something that society wants. I really doubt that.
- feralimal 6y ago
  'Society' is not a real thing, even if people treat it as one. Society does not like or dislike, cannot be informed or uninformed. It is just a collective term. Like government. Its a figment in people's imagination, a term, or an idea - brought to life only because we in aggregate believe it to be true and act as if it is. Personally, I don't consider these ideas to have substance in the way they are presented. The reality, is that 'society' is made up of individuals. Individuals are substantially real. Individuals need to choose for themselves whether they want to be informed or not, according to their conscience. Individuals should also step out of other people's business, ie stop trying to manage 'society'! But that's another story.
richardARPANET 6y ago
I'm not sure it's due to the technical setup of the platforms. But rather that they're all built in SV and/or are controlled by monopolies that are the problem. Myself and a few people are actually working on a video site with freedom of speech values and grandma level usability, feel free to follow along (https://project49476.com/ https://project49476.com/).
mFixman 6y ago
Even in the best case scenario where everyone starts using different instances of Peertube, won't it end like 2012 Reddit full of racist and paedophile instances? You need a minimum amount of moderation to remove the least desirable groups of people from posting content.

avhon1 6y ago

It doesn't have to be popular in order to be successful, or worthwhile.

hinkley 6y ago
Some day, we're going to have services with 6 billion users. I don't think that will be a good day. As a consultant I have frequently been in a situation where each member of 'my' team was only outnumbered about 6:1 by the customer. That can be directly managed. As a business owner, I can afford to have a personal relationship with a few percent of my customers. I can cherry pick. As a medium application developer, each of my employees might represent 1000 users, and even zone defense starts to crumble. I have to start treating them as numbers, and that causes new types of problems. I see the sorts of compromises we often have to make at hundreds of thousands of users, and I'm grateful that most of the verticals I'm interested in wouldn't ever have 600 million users, let alone ten times that much. There are verticals where form and function are tightly aligned, and I think those can scale much higher. Torrents and Discord, off the top of my head, I think resemble that remark. Infrastructure like nginx or Consul, maybe. Linux... well, it's 5 million lines of code so it might be 'failing' in that manner. Reddit, on the other hand... I'm glad I'm not responsible for Reddit because I'd probably hate myself half as much as my users claim to. Some comedian had a bit years ago about how he wanted to be 'Bruce Campbell famous'. This is a guy who is a god in a niche. If he wants his ego stoked, he just needs to be in the right room, and he can make that room happen just by asking for it. Meanwhile he can go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and there is a reasonable expectation that he might get to eat in peace. I think I could deal with that level of success.

fsflover 6y ago

Like email?

hinkley 6y ago

Define popular. There is a huge field between 'sustainable' and 'populist' and if we want choice and quality in the world we need to vote with our feet and dollars and ballots for alternative solutions that are big enough for people to not giggle at, but small enough that they can maintain some conceptual coherence. We need an 'Apple' (a 10% competitor that has enough quality and mindshare to go on for years or decades) in lots of verticals if we want to keep a market place for new ideas. Better still if we had a 5% and a 10% alternative. The 10% guy you have to watch and emulate. The 5% guy you can audit occasionally looking for ideas to cherry pick. The 85% still benefit from what the 15% are doing.