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The channel in this post has 20 YouTube subscribers and no more than a couple thousand total YouTube views. The trending page on PeerTube shows a list of video

The channel in this post has 20 YouTube subscribers and no more than a couple thousand total YouTube views. The trending page on PeerTube shows a list of videos with at most a few dozen views. Is PeerTube supremely unpopular (seems to have been launched several years ago: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube), or am I missing something? Does it really have an order of magnitude more Github stars (https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube) than daily viewers?

freshthought 5y ago
Perhaps the most notable fact is how upvoted this article is. Shows you how much people want to believe, maybe?
mraudiobook_com 5y ago
Yes. Amazingly very few seemsl to care about decentralizing the web and monitary systems. Arguably the most important invention since the internet itself ALL the big companies have huge incentive to kill the movement because they can't make money off it.
ShamelessC 5y ago
> The channel in this post has 20 YouTube subscribers and no more than a couple thousand total YouTube views. ...that's quite a lot even on YouTube, no? I always assumed the videos recommended for their sheer popularity were a "top 1%" sort of situation.
- spiderice 5y ago
  No, this is nowhere near a lot, even for small channels. Make a quality video about something useful and there is a good chance you get more views than this persons whole channel
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Well, if you're comparing against all YouTube users, or even all YouTube users who have ever uploaded a video, then yes, it's a lot. On the other hand, compared to most content being viewed on YouTube, it's not even tiny, it's minuscule. There are many niche hobbyist communities or individual hobbyist singers getting much more than that. 20 subscribers basically means that not even your friends and family are looking at your channel.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > 20 subscribers basically means that not even your friends and family are looking at your channel. I agree with your interpretation overall, but there's other factors at play: - Peertube isn't trying to force everyone to have an account like Youtube is - the Peertube federation is much younger, and some would say it reached maturity for broader usage very recently (this year) - view count does not account for people downloading the video directly using HTTPS direct connection and/or Webtorrent, only those using the default web client
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      I think there is a slight misunderstanding. The numbers from my GP were about YouTube subscribers and views, not PeerTube. The point being that this is a minuscule YT channel that is moving to PeerTube, one that is hardly representative of anything. For comparison, here [0] is the YT channel that has moved to PeerTube, and here [1] is a random musician's channel that I happen to follow. The second is many times larger, even though it is a single person's channel. [0] https://youtube.com/channel/UCj-eQP-Mt6Eo0mh3iwdB9Hg https://youtube.com/channel/UCj-eQP-Mt6Eo0mh3iwdB9Hg [1] https://youtube.com/c/JoostLameris https://youtube.com/c/JoostLameris
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        Thanks for the clarifiation! I had misunderstood the original comment indeed.
  - valdiorn 5y ago
    I have a random "a vs. b" video on my personal channel with 150k views. A few thousand views is obtainable by accident just naming your video a certain way.
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  Back in high school I had a "gaming channel" where I posted just random clips of my friends and I. The subscriber count peaked around 350. No idea how many views were in total. But I removed the channel years ago. So I'm guessing as long as you post regularly you can get thousands of subscribers without much effort.
Timpy 5y ago
Maybe the idea of PeerTube is a lot nice than the user experience? I can't say, I haven't tried PeerTube. I feel like this is pretty common when it comes to avoiding big tech though. When Github was bought out by Microsoft I went all in on Gitlab, but alas, the company I work for now uses Github. The sheer gravity of it pulled me back in.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  The experience is fine, but PeerTube by definition is decentralized, so measurements won't always be indicative of usefulness...
judge2020 5y ago
A lot of people see the usefulness of PeerTube but don't move because the creators they watch are on YouTube. It's the same for the creators, though - they can't move off of YouTube entirely, because none of their viewers will go to a PeerTube instance just to watch that one creator. Thus nobody moves to PT unless there are other factors (like extremist creators moving because their videos keep getting removed by YT). Another major problem that prevents creators from hosting on PeerTube is that there are no ads - many see direct-from-YouTube revenue driven by Premium views/Ad views generate a significant portion of their income. Even Linus Tech Tips, with their audience of gamers who mostly running an ad blocker, sees YouTube generate 26% of their profit[0], almost exactly as much as they get from sponsors spots in their videos. If everyone were to move to PT, we'd either need an intermediary for ads, or only creators with audiences that could afford to personally finance them (via Patreon or similar) would be able to survive and make a living off of running their channel. 0: https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=391 https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=391
- merth 5y ago
  just upload same videos to both platforms, people will come slowly.
- spijdar 5y ago
  This is my big pet peeve with people who describe Youtube's demonetization policies as "censorship" and propose Peertube as a replacement. I'm not going to get entangled in the question of what responsibility big social media has and what it should or shouldn't do about giving people platforms, but I will say that if you believe demonetization and being de-prioritized in youtube's discovery algorithms is being deplatformed/censored, moving to a service that doesn't really have monetization or youtube-style content discovery isn't the solution. If you move your content to PeerTube and want both an audience and to be paid, you'll need a combination of third party services and other social media, and will likely end up with similar problems re: advertisers cutting out "unacceptable content". I do think it'd probably be better if the content provider was divested from this layer and focused on only providing media, but Peertube doesn't really solve these social/economic problems people complain about with Youtube.
supermatt 5y ago
Peertube is really just an "app" providing a simple way to host and publish your content online outside the control of "service" providers that can also easily be accessed and shared by the "fediverse" (in this case activitypub supporting federated networks of servers and end users). You can consume peertube content with any activitypub client that supports its types. In short, peertube is an accessible way for users to publish their videos to activitypub.
- rapnie 5y ago
  Yes, Owncast [0] is another example of a media app that is in the process of adding ActivityPub protocol support [1] and become part of the Fediverse. I hope they'll be largely compatible in the way they implemented their federation support. [0] https://owncast.online/ https://owncast.online/ [1] https://github.com/owncast/owncast/tree/gek/activity-pub-1 https://github.com/owncast/owncast/tree/gek/activity-pub-1
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Peertube uses very simple and straightforward ActivityStreams (JSON) properties so it's very unlikely anyone is going to make something incompatible. However, i don't think every property is standardized yet, so having another implementation will be useful to specify everything for future implementations.
3gg 5y ago
What exactly is your point? That it's inferior technology because it's unpopular?
- SilverRed 5y ago
  In the video streaming world, yeah that is true. These platforms are not just hosts, they are discovery platforms and if there isn't any content to discover, it isn't a good platform.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Peertube discovery is based on a "following" model based on the ActivityPub protocol. You don't need a Peertube account to follow video creators, because: - you can subscribe to them from Mastodon or any fediverse client - your friends on the Fediverse can "reshare" (reshare/boost) videos from their favorite content creator There's also a "decentralized" (as in "selfhosted") search engine called SepiaSearch being developed for use with Peertube. I can't say i'm fulfilled yet by the content available on Peertube (although there is some great quality content), but at least i'm happy i'm not being dragged into recommendation hell by a hostile machine learning model trying to maximize advertising revenues... and Peertube federation keeps growing with more and more non-profits running instances for specific interests and communities, and more and more content creators ditching the creator-hostile [0] platforms for Peertube. [0] Some creators believe that tracking their viewers and serving them dubious advertisement is bad. Most creators agree that automated copyright strikes like Youtube is doing (completely ignoring copyright exemptions like fair use) is bad.
rapnie 5y ago
> Is PeerTube supremely unpopular (...), or am I missing something? One reason of seeming more inpopular than it actually is, lies in that while there are many PeerTube instances, they are not all federating together. They are selective and some are not federating at all. Also I am not sure if counting of views works all that well yet, and Likes require either signing up to individual instances, or spreading of video link via Mastodon to get liked (via ActivityPub integration). Both the federation and the level of integration with other Fediverse apps is a work in progress and steadily improving.

freshthought 5y ago

Perhaps the most notable fact is how upvoted this article is. Shows you how much people want to believe, maybe?

mraudiobook_com 5y ago

Yes. Amazingly very few seemsl to care about decentralizing the web and monitary systems. Arguably the most important invention since the internet itself ALL the big companies have huge incentive to kill the movement because they can't make money off it.

ShamelessC 5y ago

> The channel in this post has 20 YouTube subscribers and no more than a couple thousand total YouTube views. ...that's quite a lot even on YouTube, no? I always assumed the videos recommended for their sheer popularity were a "top 1%" sort of situation.

spiderice 5y ago
No, this is nowhere near a lot, even for small channels. Make a quality video about something useful and there is a good chance you get more views than this persons whole channel
tsimionescu 5y ago
Well, if you're comparing against all YouTube users, or even all YouTube users who have ever uploaded a video, then yes, it's a lot. On the other hand, compared to most content being viewed on YouTube, it's not even tiny, it's minuscule. There are many niche hobbyist communities or individual hobbyist singers getting much more than that. 20 subscribers basically means that not even your friends and family are looking at your channel.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > 20 subscribers basically means that not even your friends and family are looking at your channel. I agree with your interpretation overall, but there's other factors at play: - Peertube isn't trying to force everyone to have an account like Youtube is - the Peertube federation is much younger, and some would say it reached maturity for broader usage very recently (this year) - view count does not account for people downloading the video directly using HTTPS direct connection and/or Webtorrent, only those using the default web client
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I think there is a slight misunderstanding. The numbers from my GP were about YouTube subscribers and views, not PeerTube. The point being that this is a minuscule YT channel that is moving to PeerTube, one that is hardly representative of anything. For comparison, here [0] is the YT channel that has moved to PeerTube, and here [1] is a random musician's channel that I happen to follow. The second is many times larger, even though it is a single person's channel. [0] https://youtube.com/channel/UCj-eQP-Mt6Eo0mh3iwdB9Hg https://youtube.com/channel/UCj-eQP-Mt6Eo0mh3iwdB9Hg [1] https://youtube.com/c/JoostLameris https://youtube.com/c/JoostLameris
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Thanks for the clarifiation! I had misunderstood the original comment indeed.
- valdiorn 5y ago
  I have a random "a vs. b" video on my personal channel with 150k views. A few thousand views is obtainable by accident just naming your video a certain way.
nextlevelwizard 5y ago
Back in high school I had a "gaming channel" where I posted just random clips of my friends and I. The subscriber count peaked around 350. No idea how many views were in total. But I removed the channel years ago. So I'm guessing as long as you post regularly you can get thousands of subscribers without much effort.

Timpy 5y ago

Maybe the idea of PeerTube is a lot nice than the user experience? I can't say, I haven't tried PeerTube. I feel like this is pretty common when it comes to avoiding big tech though. When Github was bought out by Microsoft I went all in on Gitlab, but alas, the company I work for now uses Github. The sheer gravity of it pulled me back in.

maccolgan 5y ago
The experience is fine, but PeerTube by definition is decentralized, so measurements won't always be indicative of usefulness...

judge2020 5y ago

A lot of people see the usefulness of PeerTube but don't move because the creators they watch are on YouTube. It's the same for the creators, though - they can't move off of YouTube entirely, because none of their viewers will go to a PeerTube instance just to watch that one creator. Thus nobody moves to PT unless there are other factors (like extremist creators moving because their videos keep getting removed by YT). Another major problem that prevents creators from hosting on PeerTube is that there are no ads - many see direct-from-YouTube revenue driven by Premium views/Ad views generate a significant portion of their income. Even Linus Tech Tips, with their audience of gamers who mostly running an ad blocker, sees YouTube generate 26% of their profit[0], almost exactly as much as they get from sponsors spots in their videos. If everyone were to move to PT, we'd either need an intermediary for ads, or only creators with audiences that could afford to personally finance them (via Patreon or similar) would be able to survive and make a living off of running their channel. 0: https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=391 https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=391

merth 5y ago
just upload same videos to both platforms, people will come slowly.
spijdar 5y ago
This is my big pet peeve with people who describe Youtube's demonetization policies as "censorship" and propose Peertube as a replacement. I'm not going to get entangled in the question of what responsibility big social media has and what it should or shouldn't do about giving people platforms, but I will say that if you believe demonetization and being de-prioritized in youtube's discovery algorithms is being deplatformed/censored, moving to a service that doesn't really have monetization or youtube-style content discovery isn't the solution. If you move your content to PeerTube and want both an audience and to be paid, you'll need a combination of third party services and other social media, and will likely end up with similar problems re: advertisers cutting out "unacceptable content". I do think it'd probably be better if the content provider was divested from this layer and focused on only providing media, but Peertube doesn't really solve these social/economic problems people complain about with Youtube.

supermatt 5y ago

Peertube is really just an "app" providing a simple way to host and publish your content online outside the control of "service" providers that can also easily be accessed and shared by the "fediverse" (in this case activitypub supporting federated networks of servers and end users). You can consume peertube content with any activitypub client that supports its types. In short, peertube is an accessible way for users to publish their videos to activitypub.

rapnie 5y ago
Yes, Owncast [0] is another example of a media app that is in the process of adding ActivityPub protocol support [1] and become part of the Fediverse. I hope they'll be largely compatible in the way they implemented their federation support. [0] https://owncast.online/ https://owncast.online/ [1] https://github.com/owncast/owncast/tree/gek/activity-pub-1 https://github.com/owncast/owncast/tree/gek/activity-pub-1
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Peertube uses very simple and straightforward ActivityStreams (JSON) properties so it's very unlikely anyone is going to make something incompatible. However, i don't think every property is standardized yet, so having another implementation will be useful to specify everything for future implementations.

3gg 5y ago

What exactly is your point? That it's inferior technology because it's unpopular?

SilverRed 5y ago
In the video streaming world, yeah that is true. These platforms are not just hosts, they are discovery platforms and if there isn't any content to discover, it isn't a good platform.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Peertube discovery is based on a "following" model based on the ActivityPub protocol. You don't need a Peertube account to follow video creators, because: - you can subscribe to them from Mastodon or any fediverse client - your friends on the Fediverse can "reshare" (reshare/boost) videos from their favorite content creator There's also a "decentralized" (as in "selfhosted") search engine called SepiaSearch being developed for use with Peertube. I can't say i'm fulfilled yet by the content available on Peertube (although there is some great quality content), but at least i'm happy i'm not being dragged into recommendation hell by a hostile machine learning model trying to maximize advertising revenues... and Peertube federation keeps growing with more and more non-profits running instances for specific interests and communities, and more and more content creators ditching the creator-hostile [0] platforms for Peertube. [0] Some creators believe that tracking their viewers and serving them dubious advertisement is bad. Most creators agree that automated copyright strikes like Youtube is doing (completely ignoring copyright exemptions like fair use) is bad.

rapnie 5y ago

> Is PeerTube supremely unpopular (...), or am I missing something? One reason of seeming more inpopular than it actually is, lies in that while there are many PeerTube instances, they are not all federating together. They are selective and some are not federating at all. Also I am not sure if counting of views works all that well yet, and Likes require either signing up to individual instances, or spreading of video link via Mastodon to get liked (via ActivityPub integration). Both the federation and the level of integration with other Fediverse apps is a work in progress and steadily improving.