4 ms·

It's a promising system, and I'd probably use it over a non-federated video hosting system if I wanted to run a video hosting site of some kind. Yet it's curre

by CM30 3mo ago

It's a promising system, and I'd probably use it over a non-federated video hosting system if I wanted to run a video hosting site of some kind. Yet it's currently hard to find a real usecase for it, since neither the content you want nor audience is there on PeerTube at the moment. If you're interested in open source software or data privacy you might find something here or there, but topics like gaming, music, sports or movies are very much underserved on the platform at the moment, and get almost no attention from viewers. For example, I recently did a test search and found a let's play for the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The videos had something like 3-5 views on PeerTube, and about 10-15 times that on the creator's YouTube channel. It's the same issue as on Mastodon and Lemmy to be honest, except exaggerated. If the majority of topics aren't well represented on these platforms, then the general public won't use them. And if the general public won't use them, then the creators that would bring the general public over won't use them either. They need to figure out a way to encourage people outside of the 'hardcore tech nerd raised on Usenet' audience to use these platforms.

karmakurtisaani 3mo ago
Lemmy is pretty ok actually. The lack of big user base is more of a feature than a bug.
- organsnyder 3mo ago
  I've found the same with Mastadon. It has a pre-eternal-September feel to it.
- al_borland 3mo ago
  Has it normalized? When I first tried Lemmy it was mostly communists talking about communism. Then after some Reddit drama it seemed to be a bunch of people complaining about Reddit. I generally like smaller sites, but those topics weren’t exactly engaging for me.
  - ramgine 3mo ago
    I’ve been a regular lemmy user for a few years now and it’s gotten better. The communists (and fascist) platforms have been de-federated from the major platforms. It’s still full of Reddit complaining from ex redditors. I don’t think that will change. My login server is lemmy.world, so if you sign up with something else ymmv.
  - pocksuppet 3mo ago
    That was one of the first instances lemmy.world. You can ignore that one because it's very drama-filled. Other Lemmy servers are more chill.
  - karmakurtisaani 3mo ago
    I got banned from some community for pointing out how shitty Soviet Union was in WW2, but learned to avoid that instance from that. It's a "federation", so you get all kinds. There's discussion on all topics these days.
  - Forgeties79 3mo ago
    Every instance is its own thing. You probably need to filter out hexbear/lemmygrad
  - AuthAuth 3mo ago
    The commies are a smaller voice these days and can be easily filtered out.
- BeetleB 3mo ago
  Any communities (subreddit equivalents) you would recommend?
  - karmakurtisaani 3mo ago
    I mainly visit my country's community, news and browse comics/memes. More niche topics could be more active, I admit.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
WarmWash 3mo ago
Creators get 60% of youtube's ad revenue from youtube. What does Peertube pay? There is your answer. If people want good stuff, there needs to be money flowing to the source of it. The internet desperately needs to shed this "everything good is totally free" mindset, because what it actually manifests as is "I love taking without the requirement of giving".
- dylan604 3mo ago
  Not really sure how people need to be explained this, but for whatever reason, this most basic of information is seemingly skipped over. Even if peertube wants to pay 65%, that's just a bigger percentage of nothing.
- zelphirkalt 3mo ago
  The matter of compensation or donation can be handled completely separately. Creators can be supported on other platforms like Liberapay, Patreon, Kofi, and many creators are supported that way. If we are talking about clickbait and making money from getting unwanted ads in people's faces, no thank you we don't need more of that.
  - austinthetaco 3mo ago
    that works for people you regularly watch, but what about the people that put out the rare random great video. or a video on a topic when you're trying to fix something. People dont subscribe to those patreons, and thus those kind of creators rely on ad revenue.
  - WarmWash 3mo ago
    No one donates money. It doesn't happen. Conversion rates across the board are around 1%. And then of those donations, most are the lowest tier/lowest increment. It's the most annoying and persistent counterpoint brought up in these discussions, but it has no grounding in reality. The most popular contingent of viewers are ad-supported, close behind are ad-blocking, then the last 5% are your subscribers and donators.
bobbob1921 3mo ago
I agree this is a real issue, however hopefully a solution is that creators will upload their videos to both sites (ie YouTube is their primary but also upload to peertube at the same time) which is pretty easy to do and eventually a site like peer tube might reach that critical mass with enough content
pocksuppet 3mo ago
FOSS server software shouldn't be seen as a platform. It should be seen as software that can be used to create a platform. Federation makes it technically a platform but just barely. Mastodon is barely a platform - mastodon.social is, and kolektiva is a different one. PeerTube is software you could use to make a video streaming website like Nebula.
- tastyfreeze 3mo ago
  To me the ideal use of PeerTube would be if studios adopted it as their publishing platform. Publish to their instance, syndicated globally. But, they are so hardcore on licensing that they will never adopt a platform that doesn't have complete control over where their media is distributed. The lack of a method for monetizing videos on PeerTube is also like the black mark for a video platform. But, the maintainers of PeerTube are ideologically opposed to monetization lest the toxin of advertisements taint the platform. The legal landscape of media publishing is filled with antiquated deals from broadcast days for regional control. That has changed marginally with the adoption of streaming. https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/1586#issuecomment-4690090800 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/1586#issuecomm...
  - pocksuppet 3mo ago
    AAA studios will never just put their videos on the internet. This is a prime example of somebody ignoring the social and political aspects of a field and focusing only on the technology. The reason Disney doesn't put their videos on the internet for free-to-the-user viewing IS NOT because they lack server software.
squeegmeister 3mo ago
I.e, network effects are hard to overcome
ndriscoll 3mo ago
You don't need (or likely even want, c.f. "eternal September") the general public. You just need your discussion group. e.g. if you want discussion of mathematics from world renowned experts like Terence Tao or Tim Gowers, you would use Mastodon.
frollogaston 3mo ago
Supposedly there's a button to wholesale import your YouTube channel to PeerTube and keep syncing after, wonder if that's easy/reliable enough for people to do it just cause.
BeetleB 3mo ago
> Yet it's currently hard to find a real usecase for it, since neither the content you want nor audience is there on PeerTube at the moment. The same use case as Youtube in its early years. You upload a video, and send your friends a link (or post/embed on your blog). That's good enough. It's totally OK if search is not useful. Of course, the elephant in the room is the cost to run one of these servers...

by CM30 3mo ago

karmakurtisaani 3mo ago

Lemmy is pretty ok actually. The lack of big user base is more of a feature than a bug.

organsnyder 3mo ago
I've found the same with Mastadon. It has a pre-eternal-September feel to it.
al_borland 3mo ago
Has it normalized? When I first tried Lemmy it was mostly communists talking about communism. Then after some Reddit drama it seemed to be a bunch of people complaining about Reddit. I generally like smaller sites, but those topics weren’t exactly engaging for me.
- ramgine 3mo ago
  I’ve been a regular lemmy user for a few years now and it’s gotten better. The communists (and fascist) platforms have been de-federated from the major platforms. It’s still full of Reddit complaining from ex redditors. I don’t think that will change. My login server is lemmy.world, so if you sign up with something else ymmv.
- pocksuppet 3mo ago
  That was one of the first instances lemmy.world. You can ignore that one because it's very drama-filled. Other Lemmy servers are more chill.
- karmakurtisaani 3mo ago
  I got banned from some community for pointing out how shitty Soviet Union was in WW2, but learned to avoid that instance from that. It's a "federation", so you get all kinds. There's discussion on all topics these days.
- Forgeties79 3mo ago
  Every instance is its own thing. You probably need to filter out hexbear/lemmygrad
- AuthAuth 3mo ago
  The commies are a smaller voice these days and can be easily filtered out.
BeetleB 3mo ago
Any communities (subreddit equivalents) you would recommend?
- karmakurtisaani 3mo ago
  I mainly visit my country's community, news and browse comics/memes. More niche topics could be more active, I admit.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

WarmWash 3mo ago

Creators get 60% of youtube's ad revenue from youtube. What does Peertube pay? There is your answer. If people want good stuff, there needs to be money flowing to the source of it. The internet desperately needs to shed this "everything good is totally free" mindset, because what it actually manifests as is "I love taking without the requirement of giving".

dylan604 3mo ago
Not really sure how people need to be explained this, but for whatever reason, this most basic of information is seemingly skipped over. Even if peertube wants to pay 65%, that's just a bigger percentage of nothing.
zelphirkalt 3mo ago
The matter of compensation or donation can be handled completely separately. Creators can be supported on other platforms like Liberapay, Patreon, Kofi, and many creators are supported that way. If we are talking about clickbait and making money from getting unwanted ads in people's faces, no thank you we don't need more of that.
- austinthetaco 3mo ago
  that works for people you regularly watch, but what about the people that put out the rare random great video. or a video on a topic when you're trying to fix something. People dont subscribe to those patreons, and thus those kind of creators rely on ad revenue.
- WarmWash 3mo ago
  No one donates money. It doesn't happen. Conversion rates across the board are around 1%. And then of those donations, most are the lowest tier/lowest increment. It's the most annoying and persistent counterpoint brought up in these discussions, but it has no grounding in reality. The most popular contingent of viewers are ad-supported, close behind are ad-blocking, then the last 5% are your subscribers and donators.

bobbob1921 3mo ago

I agree this is a real issue, however hopefully a solution is that creators will upload their videos to both sites (ie YouTube is their primary but also upload to peertube at the same time) which is pretty easy to do and eventually a site like peer tube might reach that critical mass with enough content

pocksuppet 3mo ago

FOSS server software shouldn't be seen as a platform. It should be seen as software that can be used to create a platform. Federation makes it technically a platform but just barely. Mastodon is barely a platform - mastodon.social is, and kolektiva is a different one. PeerTube is software you could use to make a video streaming website like Nebula.

tastyfreeze 3mo ago
To me the ideal use of PeerTube would be if studios adopted it as their publishing platform. Publish to their instance, syndicated globally. But, they are so hardcore on licensing that they will never adopt a platform that doesn't have complete control over where their media is distributed. The lack of a method for monetizing videos on PeerTube is also like the black mark for a video platform. But, the maintainers of PeerTube are ideologically opposed to monetization lest the toxin of advertisements taint the platform. The legal landscape of media publishing is filled with antiquated deals from broadcast days for regional control. That has changed marginally with the adoption of streaming. https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/1586#issuecomment-4690090800 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/1586#issuecomm...
- pocksuppet 3mo ago
  AAA studios will never just put their videos on the internet. This is a prime example of somebody ignoring the social and political aspects of a field and focusing only on the technology. The reason Disney doesn't put their videos on the internet for free-to-the-user viewing IS NOT because they lack server software.

squeegmeister 3mo ago

I.e, network effects are hard to overcome

ndriscoll 3mo ago

You don't need (or likely even want, c.f. "eternal September") the general public. You just need your discussion group. e.g. if you want discussion of mathematics from world renowned experts like Terence Tao or Tim Gowers, you would use Mastodon.

frollogaston 3mo ago

Supposedly there's a button to wholesale import your YouTube channel to PeerTube and keep syncing after, wonder if that's easy/reliable enough for people to do it just cause.

BeetleB 3mo ago

> Yet it's currently hard to find a real usecase for it, since neither the content you want nor audience is there on PeerTube at the moment. The same use case as Youtube in its early years. You upload a video, and send your friends a link (or post/embed on your blog). That's good enough. It's totally OK if search is not useful. Of course, the elephant in the room is the cost to run one of these servers...