10 ms·

What 2023 will bring for PeerTube

260 points by booteille 4y ago

raybb 4y ago
Finally, I love that they've created https://peer.tube/ https://peer.tube/ to showcase good content on PeerTube. Discoverability has been quite a challenge. Also, remote transcoding of videos seems like a huge win! Makes it so you won't need as beefy as a system to run PeerTube. I wonder why FOSDEM doesn't use PeerTube to host their videos.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > I wonder why FOSDEM doesn't use PeerTube to host their videos. I didn’t watch any of their videos yet this year, but perhaps the thing they are using to host their videos is something they have built on their own, before PeerTube even existed? And so if what they have works then that’s a good reason to stick to using that.
- nodja 4y ago
  > Also, remote transcoding of videos seems like a huge win! Makes it so you won't need as beefy as a system to run PeerTube. You can technically do it if you're willing to hack around. Since it uses the ffmpeg binary you could technically replace it with rffmpeg[1], the setup isn't pretty but it's doable. I haven't done it myself but have seen reddit posts on the jellyfin community that it works pretty well once setup. [1] https://github.com/joshuaboniface/rffmpeg https://github.com/joshuaboniface/rffmpeg
- sschueller 4y ago
  Cool, I hope they keep it "safe for play store review". I have had to run my own server in order to get the client[1] I wrote to pass play store reviews. [1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android
robertlagrant 4y ago
As a Brit I love the idea of a video service just for the titled and ennobled. May I ask - do the non-peers get any access at all? Even perhaps as a degraded, low resolution service? If so, I'd like to know where to register my disapproval.
- phillc73 4y ago
  If you do not wish to watch videos of fox hunting, Mayfair house parties and Etonian high jinks, then commons-tube is for you.
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Sir, I believe it is called “RubeTube”.
    - nelele 4y ago
      [dead]
  - toyg 4y ago
    These days, a Lords-oriented tube site would actually be full of videos on how to raise money for friends and family without attracting scrutiny, or to sycophant your way to the top of a political party - the primary qualifications of modern peers.
  - TomK32 4y ago
    Don't forget the Boat Race and Royal Ascot. I just hope they won't let the likes of John Oliver onto PeerTube.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      He's over on SneerTube.
- EGreg 4y ago
  When Simon Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent used to ask “peers, what do you think?” I thought he was asking his fellow judges. But no! He was asking Piers Morgan!
- fredsmith219 4y ago
  Fox hunts are paywalled, though.
AstixAndBelix 4y ago
This guy has implemented a mind-boggling amount of features in these years basically all alone and funded with a modest tech salary. Just goes to show how much potential small teams or even individuals have that gets wasted in big corpos.
- college_physics 4y ago
  Yes. This almost makes you giggle with excitement about what sort of potential has accumulated around web technologies when used creatively and with purpose. Self-hosting is still not quite as easy as it could have been, though.
- Nifty3929 4y ago
  I feel like this relates right back to the recent wave of layoffs.
- rglullis 4y ago
  It also shows how the web (and technology in general) would be a lot better for us if we decided to support these people just a little bit, instead of letting ourselves be exploited by Big Tech in exchange of "free" stuff.
  - tsgagnon 4y ago
    It also shows how the web (and technology in general) would be a lot more better for us if we decided to support these people just a little bit, instead of letting ourselves be exploited by Big Tech in exchange of "free" stuff. The biggest issue with Peertube/Youtube is related to creators and how they get paid for content they create. Youtube has an avenue for that to happen, and Peertube doesn't, or at least in a way that works. Unless Peertube wants to just be "the place you host your videos from other platforms as a backup" something would have to be done.
    - phone8675309 4y ago
      How many YouTubers, as a percentage of total users, actually get paid a living wage by doing work on YouTube? I'd assume that it's not many. The ones that do aren't surviving on YouTube ad revenue alone since the adpocalypse. They're doing so based on ad reads and crowdfunding, both of which work on Peertube just fine. The only thing keeping them on YouTube is audience reach.
ehutch79 4y ago
I'm getting certificate errors. This is a giant red flag to me.
- frostiness 4y ago
  Are you sure you're not on a network that may be blocking the site? I had the same issue but it went away once I connected to a VPN.
- _ache_ 4y ago
  I don't. It a basic Let's Encrypt certificate. It comes from you side.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  For which domain? joinpeertube.org or one of the video hosting nodes? Use Qualys [1] to test the domain in question to link here or use the testssl.sh [2] code only depends on openssl and bash to test from your machine. If one of the many self hosted nodes, see if you can find a way to reach out to them and kindly suggest they set up certbot or a cron job to renew their certs. Joinpeertube.org looks good to me [3] so I assume you find a self-hosted node that needs some attention. If someone here knows of a way to query a list of all the self-hosted domains joined into peertube perhaps we could run testssl.sh against all of them to generate reports. I am not opposed to doing this if someone knows how I can get a list of all the domains using curl. [1] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ [2] - https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh [3] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=joinpeertube.org https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=joinpeertube....
  - ehutch79 4y ago
    joinpeertube.org Clicking on the HN link, as a user how would I know this is to be expected? or that it's one random node?
    - LinuxBender 4y ago
      Joinpeertube.org is not a random node, however that site links to many random nodes for the videos. One may or may not realize when they click on a video that they are on a new domain unless they glance at the URL bar. That is why I was looking for clarification. If you are experiencing issues on joinpeertube.org then it may be worth running an OS update and ensuring you also have the latest version of your browser to rule out CA certificate store issues. CA stores are periodically updated and LetsEncrypt did go through a change that will eventually invalidate its older signing keys and intermediate certificates. This would only impact people that have stagnant operating systems or browsers unless one is being routed through an outdated MitM Man-in-the-Middle HTTPS proxy. We may be able to rule out MitM with openssl, see if the fingerprint is the same for you. openssl s_client -servername joinpeertube.com -connect joinpeertube.com:443 < /dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -fingerprint -noout -in /dev/stdin SHA1 Fingerprint=C0:4E:F2:F6:EA:2B:72:C5:84:E0:73:2C:2C:2B:BB:FB:A1:34:C8:20
abcc8 4y ago
I'm wondering how they plan to get decent content. I just searched two of my interests, climbing and canoeing, and only a handful of uninteresting videos popped up. Are there specific topics that have engaging communities on the site?
- kevincox 4y ago
  Just like YouTube most content is crap. Maybe the bigger problem is that searching on any one instance will only search a small subset of the content available. But it is mostly a discovery problem. Once you have found a channel that you like it is easy to follow via RSS or ActivityPub. I would love to see discovery services built on top of PeerTube, it seems natural to separate the viewing infrastructure from the recommendation service.
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    > Just like YouTube most content is crap. Well, most of everything in the Universe is “crap.” But, to each their own, and I find YouTube to be a treasure trove of educational content, among other things.
  - booteille 4y ago
    You can also use https://sepiasearch.org/ https://sepiasearch.org/ to find content across most instances.
  - JoshCole 4y ago
    Quality is a function of effort. Effort has a cost. The typical cost for high quality is high effort. A content creator producing quality content has spent a lot of money in order to produce the high quality content. How much? Estimates from YouTube creators who are currently in the top creators get us numbers like $25,000-$1,000,000 per video. If they do not reliably make more than that much from trying to produce at that quality, they cannot survive while doing so. So a larger problem than content discovery is that by default people producing quality content will die.
  - tsgagnon 4y ago
college_physics 4y ago
As always the French locale means there is a bit of language barrier for the English speaking world, but framasoft supports a whole host of interesting "fediverse" projects. I would maybe single out mobilizon [0] as most intriguing. It is "simply" about communities organizing events in a decentralized way. [0] https://mobilizon.fr/ https://mobilizon.fr/
- _ache_ 4y ago
  Humm, I can't see a thing that is not translated to at least english. Not sure about the language barrier.
  - college_physics 4y ago
    once you start digging into frama forums, repos etc its a more colorful picture. To be clear, I am not complaining: steamrolling the world into a monoculture is not my idea of a good online society, just saying that the impact of some open source organizations like framasoft on tech might have been higher had there not been a linguistic friction to overcome.
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
      "Impact on tech" doesn't just mean "impact on Silicon Valley". Framasoft has been plenty influential in Europe, and a decent chunk of that has been because they're not just another anglophonic "international" (United States) software house.
      - college_physics 4y ago
        I am with you, but some humility on the face of current tech reality won't hurt, it might just help identify structural obstacles and how to overcome them. E.g., we are exchanging those views on a "Silicon Valley" platform - if there ever was one. There is nothing remotely equivalent to HN in Europe, primarily (I think) because of linguistic frictions.
  - 4y ago
neonsunset 4y ago
It's nice to see PeerTube keeping going, it's quite an important project in the long run, always providing the opportunity to spin up your own instance for videohosting, and "peer" too. Here federation is actually a more useful model when compared to deeply flawed fediverse in its use case.
- doublepg23 4y ago
  PeerTube uses ActivityPub, it is _part_ of the fediverse. You can comment on a video using a Mastodon account.
  - neonsunset 4y ago
    I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for the correction though.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Fediverse is exactly what you were saying when you said "Here federation is actually a more useful model", it is federated.
    - hnarn 4y ago
      Two comments in and still not a word on what is “flawed” about the fediverse.
      - hgsgm 4y ago
        I'm guessing they are interpreting "fediverse" as a federated implementation of a global clique like Twitter where everyone wants to connect to everyone, instead of only their friends/followees
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jrm4 4y ago
In a very odd way, I almost want Youtube to screw up something big to shine some light here, a la Twitter/Mastodon. Get these things rolling!
- somecompanyguy 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - seanw444 4y ago
    As well as guntubers. You're not allowed to show assembly, or even disassembly, of firearms really anymore. Who needs to amend the Constitution when the institutions can simply erase knowledge and experience on exercising the rights therein.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Youtube semi-regularly screws up in ways that makes the creators fear for their channel and audience, and makes them evaluate alternatives. The "problem" is that youtube never really screws up on the content consumer side, so viewers have little reason to ever go to any of these altnernatives (unless it's paid bonus content on patreon). Though I guess I could see some channels that are too heavily restricted on youtube using peertube as a repository of all videos, and youtube for the videos that youtube currently deems acceptable enough.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Just like with Mastodon created because of the 2013 Twitter APIpocalypse, YouTube have been screwing things up big for at least 14 years now, and PeerTube as it exists now is at least partially the result of those actions : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-... (To be fair there also was that Viacom et al. lawsuit for $1 billion in damages...)
- nicce 4y ago
  I doesn't matter much since there is no money involved in alternatives. Google pays for content creators. A lot. Decentralisation is likely removing all compensations and people stop pushing content for money.
somecompanyguy 4y ago
my guess is a massive propaganda campaign demonizing peertube
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Given some of the content I've seen on PeerTube, PeerTube becoming popular would be the end of PeerTube.
unixhero 4y ago
More speed, more content!
schoolornot 4y ago
IPFS would be welcome: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/494 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/494
aeharding 4y ago
Nice seeing this on the top of HN, lucky timing, I was just browsing code/blogposts etc last night and ended up donating €30. I've been toying with the software and I've been pretty impressed. I'd like to see an invite-based signup option like Mastodon, but other than that, it's a nice roadmap! Edit: Created an idea post: https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/posts/139/invite-links-to-create-an-account https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/posts/139/invite-links-to-cre...
jrmg 4y ago
What is that screenshot of ‘Morning Affairs’ to ‘Embark’ meant to show? Related, that’s probably not the best picture to show if they’re going for mainstream acceptance. I suspect it’s probably a pretty sedate video actually, so the author of the post just didn’t think about how it looked, but just choosing something with less apparent nakedness would probably give a better first impression if PeerTube is going for a widespread audience.
peppermint_gum 4y ago
I have one problem with PeerTube: its P2P architecture makes the users legally liable for the content they're watching, because they aren't just watching, they are also automatically sharing it. Of course, Torrent has the same problem but I think in that case people are more aware of it.
- cuillevel3 4y ago
  It's already happening with fascist propaganda: https://joinpeertube.org/news/isd-study https://joinpeertube.org/news/isd-study
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    [dead]
TheCaptain4815 4y ago
General question, why haven't nefarious actors used PeerTubes technology to launch their own non-censorable channels/videos? I'm talking ISIS tier.
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
The fundamental benefit of Youtube is that it is perhaps the only social media platform, along with Instagram and Onlyfans, that has figured out how to create an ecosystem where creators are sufficiently compensated in a way that sustains careers. The problem here was only ever partly technological, and the rest is a business problem. On one end, you have the ability of Youtube to store huge amounts of video, transcode it, and then serve it to basically every corner of the globe, eating up significant portions of global bandwidth doing so, all with incredibly low tail latency (load up random 0-view videos and they still load quickly). On the other, you have creators actually getting paid. Yes, they're not paid very much, and yes there are endless issues with advertisers getting unhappy or creators complaining about content policy, but by and large it's sustained an incredibly diverse ecosystem of people making videos because enough people watch them to make it a living. That's not to add the embedded advertising that usually pays much more than YT's own ads. Any platform that wants to compete must solve all these problems simultaneously: can you serve video at global scale, not go bankrupt doing it, and split enough of your money video creators that they actually want to host their videos with you. The problem is as much with the business model as it is technological, and anybody that tries to build a better youtube just by throwing code at the problem is doomed to fail. And then after you have all of that you still end up with the network effect: YT has all the users and all the video, and it's a self-reinforcing system where one begets the other.

260 points by booteille 4y ago

Finally, I love that they've created https://peer.tube/ https://peer.tube/ to showcase good content on PeerTube. Discoverability has been quite a challenge. Also, remote transcoding of videos seems like a huge win! Makes it so you won't need as beefy as a system to run PeerTube. I wonder why FOSDEM doesn't use PeerTube to host their videos.

codetrotter 4y ago
> I wonder why FOSDEM doesn't use PeerTube to host their videos. I didn’t watch any of their videos yet this year, but perhaps the thing they are using to host their videos is something they have built on their own, before PeerTube even existed? And so if what they have works then that’s a good reason to stick to using that.
nodja 4y ago
> Also, remote transcoding of videos seems like a huge win! Makes it so you won't need as beefy as a system to run PeerTube. You can technically do it if you're willing to hack around. Since it uses the ffmpeg binary you could technically replace it with rffmpeg[1], the setup isn't pretty but it's doable. I haven't done it myself but have seen reddit posts on the jellyfin community that it works pretty well once setup. [1] https://github.com/joshuaboniface/rffmpeg https://github.com/joshuaboniface/rffmpeg
sschueller 4y ago
Cool, I hope they keep it "safe for play store review". I have had to run my own server in order to get the client[1] I wrote to pass play store reviews. [1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android

robertlagrant 4y ago

As a Brit I love the idea of a video service just for the titled and ennobled. May I ask - do the non-peers get any access at all? Even perhaps as a degraded, low resolution service? If so, I'd like to know where to register my disapproval.

phillc73 4y ago
If you do not wish to watch videos of fox hunting, Mayfair house parties and Etonian high jinks, then commons-tube is for you.
- omginternets 4y ago
  Sir, I believe it is called “RubeTube”.
  - nelele 4y ago
    [dead]
- toyg 4y ago
  These days, a Lords-oriented tube site would actually be full of videos on how to raise money for friends and family without attracting scrutiny, or to sycophant your way to the top of a political party - the primary qualifications of modern peers.
- TomK32 4y ago
  Don't forget the Boat Race and Royal Ascot. I just hope they won't let the likes of John Oliver onto PeerTube.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    He's over on SneerTube.
EGreg 4y ago
When Simon Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent used to ask “peers, what do you think?” I thought he was asking his fellow judges. But no! He was asking Piers Morgan!
fredsmith219 4y ago
Fox hunts are paywalled, though.

AstixAndBelix 4y ago

This guy has implemented a mind-boggling amount of features in these years basically all alone and funded with a modest tech salary. Just goes to show how much potential small teams or even individuals have that gets wasted in big corpos.

college_physics 4y ago
Yes. This almost makes you giggle with excitement about what sort of potential has accumulated around web technologies when used creatively and with purpose. Self-hosting is still not quite as easy as it could have been, though.
Nifty3929 4y ago
I feel like this relates right back to the recent wave of layoffs.
rglullis 4y ago
It also shows how the web (and technology in general) would be a lot better for us if we decided to support these people just a little bit, instead of letting ourselves be exploited by Big Tech in exchange of "free" stuff.
- tsgagnon 4y ago
  It also shows how the web (and technology in general) would be a lot more better for us if we decided to support these people just a little bit, instead of letting ourselves be exploited by Big Tech in exchange of "free" stuff. The biggest issue with Peertube/Youtube is related to creators and how they get paid for content they create. Youtube has an avenue for that to happen, and Peertube doesn't, or at least in a way that works. Unless Peertube wants to just be "the place you host your videos from other platforms as a backup" something would have to be done.
  - phone8675309 4y ago
    How many YouTubers, as a percentage of total users, actually get paid a living wage by doing work on YouTube? I'd assume that it's not many. The ones that do aren't surviving on YouTube ad revenue alone since the adpocalypse. They're doing so based on ad reads and crowdfunding, both of which work on Peertube just fine. The only thing keeping them on YouTube is audience reach.

ehutch79 4y ago

I'm getting certificate errors. This is a giant red flag to me.

frostiness 4y ago
Are you sure you're not on a network that may be blocking the site? I had the same issue but it went away once I connected to a VPN.
_ache_ 4y ago
I don't. It a basic Let's Encrypt certificate. It comes from you side.
LinuxBender 4y ago
For which domain? joinpeertube.org or one of the video hosting nodes? Use Qualys [1] to test the domain in question to link here or use the testssl.sh [2] code only depends on openssl and bash to test from your machine. If one of the many self hosted nodes, see if you can find a way to reach out to them and kindly suggest they set up certbot or a cron job to renew their certs. Joinpeertube.org looks good to me [3] so I assume you find a self-hosted node that needs some attention. If someone here knows of a way to query a list of all the self-hosted domains joined into peertube perhaps we could run testssl.sh against all of them to generate reports. I am not opposed to doing this if someone knows how I can get a list of all the domains using curl. [1] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ [2] - https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh [3] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=joinpeertube.org https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=joinpeertube....
- ehutch79 4y ago
  joinpeertube.org Clicking on the HN link, as a user how would I know this is to be expected? or that it's one random node?
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    Joinpeertube.org is not a random node, however that site links to many random nodes for the videos. One may or may not realize when they click on a video that they are on a new domain unless they glance at the URL bar. That is why I was looking for clarification. If you are experiencing issues on joinpeertube.org then it may be worth running an OS update and ensuring you also have the latest version of your browser to rule out CA certificate store issues. CA stores are periodically updated and LetsEncrypt did go through a change that will eventually invalidate its older signing keys and intermediate certificates. This would only impact people that have stagnant operating systems or browsers unless one is being routed through an outdated MitM Man-in-the-Middle HTTPS proxy. We may be able to rule out MitM with openssl, see if the fingerprint is the same for you. openssl s_client -servername joinpeertube.com -connect joinpeertube.com:443 < /dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -fingerprint -noout -in /dev/stdin SHA1 Fingerprint=C0:4E:F2:F6:EA:2B:72:C5:84:E0:73:2C:2C:2B:BB:FB:A1:34:C8:20

abcc8 4y ago

I'm wondering how they plan to get decent content. I just searched two of my interests, climbing and canoeing, and only a handful of uninteresting videos popped up. Are there specific topics that have engaging communities on the site?

kevincox 4y ago
Just like YouTube most content is crap. Maybe the bigger problem is that searching on any one instance will only search a small subset of the content available. But it is mostly a discovery problem. Once you have found a channel that you like it is easy to follow via RSS or ActivityPub. I would love to see discovery services built on top of PeerTube, it seems natural to separate the viewing infrastructure from the recommendation service.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  > Just like YouTube most content is crap. Well, most of everything in the Universe is “crap.” But, to each their own, and I find YouTube to be a treasure trove of educational content, among other things.
- booteille 4y ago
  You can also use https://sepiasearch.org/ https://sepiasearch.org/ to find content across most instances.
- JoshCole 4y ago
  Quality is a function of effort. Effort has a cost. The typical cost for high quality is high effort. A content creator producing quality content has spent a lot of money in order to produce the high quality content. How much? Estimates from YouTube creators who are currently in the top creators get us numbers like $25,000-$1,000,000 per video. If they do not reliably make more than that much from trying to produce at that quality, they cannot survive while doing so. So a larger problem than content discovery is that by default people producing quality content will die.
- tsgagnon 4y ago

college_physics 4y ago

As always the French locale means there is a bit of language barrier for the English speaking world, but framasoft supports a whole host of interesting "fediverse" projects. I would maybe single out mobilizon [0] as most intriguing. It is "simply" about communities organizing events in a decentralized way. [0] https://mobilizon.fr/ https://mobilizon.fr/

_ache_ 4y ago
Humm, I can't see a thing that is not translated to at least english. Not sure about the language barrier.
- college_physics 4y ago
  once you start digging into frama forums, repos etc its a more colorful picture. To be clear, I am not complaining: steamrolling the world into a monoculture is not my idea of a good online society, just saying that the impact of some open source organizations like framasoft on tech might have been higher had there not been a linguistic friction to overcome.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    "Impact on tech" doesn't just mean "impact on Silicon Valley". Framasoft has been plenty influential in Europe, and a decent chunk of that has been because they're not just another anglophonic "international" (United States) software house.
    - college_physics 4y ago
      I am with you, but some humility on the face of current tech reality won't hurt, it might just help identify structural obstacles and how to overcome them. E.g., we are exchanging those views on a "Silicon Valley" platform - if there ever was one. There is nothing remotely equivalent to HN in Europe, primarily (I think) because of linguistic frictions.
- 4y ago

neonsunset 4y ago

It's nice to see PeerTube keeping going, it's quite an important project in the long run, always providing the opportunity to spin up your own instance for videohosting, and "peer" too. Here federation is actually a more useful model when compared to deeply flawed fediverse in its use case.

doublepg23 4y ago
PeerTube uses ActivityPub, it is _part_ of the fediverse. You can comment on a video using a Mastodon account.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for the correction though.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Fediverse is exactly what you were saying when you said "Here federation is actually a more useful model", it is federated.
  - hnarn 4y ago
    Two comments in and still not a word on what is “flawed” about the fediverse.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      I'm guessing they are interpreting "fediverse" as a federated implementation of a global clique like Twitter where everyone wants to connect to everyone, instead of only their friends/followees
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jrm4 4y ago

In a very odd way, I almost want Youtube to screw up something big to shine some light here, a la Twitter/Mastodon. Get these things rolling!

somecompanyguy 4y ago
[flagged]
- seanw444 4y ago
  As well as guntubers. You're not allowed to show assembly, or even disassembly, of firearms really anymore. Who needs to amend the Constitution when the institutions can simply erase knowledge and experience on exercising the rights therein.
wongarsu 4y ago
Youtube semi-regularly screws up in ways that makes the creators fear for their channel and audience, and makes them evaluate alternatives. The "problem" is that youtube never really screws up on the content consumer side, so viewers have little reason to ever go to any of these altnernatives (unless it's paid bonus content on patreon). Though I guess I could see some channels that are too heavily restricted on youtube using peertube as a repository of all videos, and youtube for the videos that youtube currently deems acceptable enough.
BlueTemplar 4y ago
Just like with Mastodon created because of the 2013 Twitter APIpocalypse, YouTube have been screwing things up big for at least 14 years now, and PeerTube as it exists now is at least partially the result of those actions : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-... (To be fair there also was that Viacom et al. lawsuit for $1 billion in damages...)
nicce 4y ago
I doesn't matter much since there is no money involved in alternatives. Google pays for content creators. A lot. Decentralisation is likely removing all compensations and people stop pushing content for money.

somecompanyguy 4y ago

my guess is a massive propaganda campaign demonizing peertube

CharlesW 4y ago
Given some of the content I've seen on PeerTube, PeerTube becoming popular would be the end of PeerTube.

unixhero 4y ago

More speed, more content!

schoolornot 4y ago

IPFS would be welcome: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/494 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/494

aeharding 4y ago

Nice seeing this on the top of HN, lucky timing, I was just browsing code/blogposts etc last night and ended up donating €30. I've been toying with the software and I've been pretty impressed. I'd like to see an invite-based signup option like Mastodon, but other than that, it's a nice roadmap! Edit: Created an idea post: https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/posts/139/invite-links-to-create-an-account https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/posts/139/invite-links-to-cre...

jrmg 4y ago

What is that screenshot of ‘Morning Affairs’ to ‘Embark’ meant to show? Related, that’s probably not the best picture to show if they’re going for mainstream acceptance. I suspect it’s probably a pretty sedate video actually, so the author of the post just didn’t think about how it looked, but just choosing something with less apparent nakedness would probably give a better first impression if PeerTube is going for a widespread audience.

peppermint_gum 4y ago

I have one problem with PeerTube: its P2P architecture makes the users legally liable for the content they're watching, because they aren't just watching, they are also automatically sharing it. Of course, Torrent has the same problem but I think in that case people are more aware of it.

cuillevel3 4y ago
It's already happening with fascist propaganda: https://joinpeertube.org/news/isd-study https://joinpeertube.org/news/isd-study
- tux2bsd 4y ago
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TheCaptain4815 4y ago

General question, why haven't nefarious actors used PeerTubes technology to launch their own non-censorable channels/videos? I'm talking ISIS tier.

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

The fundamental benefit of Youtube is that it is perhaps the only social media platform, along with Instagram and Onlyfans, that has figured out how to create an ecosystem where creators are sufficiently compensated in a way that sustains careers. The problem here was only ever partly technological, and the rest is a business problem. On one end, you have the ability of Youtube to store huge amounts of video, transcode it, and then serve it to basically every corner of the globe, eating up significant portions of global bandwidth doing so, all with incredibly low tail latency (load up random 0-view videos and they still load quickly). On the other, you have creators actually getting paid. Yes, they're not paid very much, and yes there are endless issues with advertisers getting unhappy or creators complaining about content policy, but by and large it's sustained an incredibly diverse ecosystem of people making videos because enough people watch them to make it a living. That's not to add the embedded advertising that usually pays much more than YT's own ads. Any platform that wants to compete must solve all these problems simultaneously: can you serve video at global scale, not go bankrupt doing it, and split enough of your money video creators that they actually want to host their videos with you. The problem is as much with the business model as it is technological, and anybody that tries to build a better youtube just by throwing code at the problem is doomed to fail. And then after you have all of that you still end up with the network effect: YT has all the users and all the video, and it's a self-reinforcing system where one begets the other.