Peertube

Since peertube isn't backed by native torrents (only webtorrents which aren't used by most torrenters), it means that individual servers are bearing an immense amount of hosting costs: hard drive space on VPS's, network bandwidth, encoding, etc.

This is a completely unsustainable model if you look at how much these things cost the people running them. 100GB alone of space on a VPS can cost more than $40 / month. and that's just a handful of videos.

Torrents have already solved this problem years ago, by distributing these costs among hundreds of seeders on their own personal computers. All that's needed is for people to learn how to seed their own videos, and post magnet links around.

... because discovery of videos is not solved. Looking for relevant content on Peertube is a chore.

Because of the friction for new users don't understanding federation basis. Because of creators not having monetary revenue from advertiser on it. Beause of creators not having viewer on this service and thus cannot switch completely. Because people are lazy and YouTube works for most of them (until it become unusable)

No one has figured out how to make it seem like a centralized service, which is a much better experience for actually watching and finding content.

All anyone needs to do is rewind 15 to 20 years ago, give people a content user experience to what you tube was then, and start packing it full of the content people already know.

Creators won't make money off of it though so it won't gain traction.

Because the very few people using it are more or less using it like personal video blogs, there's nothing anyone other than their friends would want to watch.

"Ackshually, there is good content!"
Considering the ongoing complaint of peertube search sucking HARD, it's as good as it not existing

Take a look over at: https://piefed.social/f/fediversevideos if you want to see a collection of videos from a wide variety of instances.

I like subscribing to channels via piefed OR on my home peertube server and use it like youtube subscriptions. I pick the best (or to me interesting) and post it over at !peertube@lemmy.world .

https://peertube.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=365

Overall peertube is seeing a gradual increase in number of users and servers getting started up. Although its hard to tell with servers starting to implement anti AI and tracking software (makes it hard to find out numbers on certain trackers).

Yes, for the reasons you mention, plus the difficulty of learning what you'll find where, and (I hate to say it) the absence of any financial motive for creators or hosts when there are commercial alternatives that will pay you. Because video production and hosting are both relatively expensive the financial side will be even more challenging than for Lemmy and Mastodon hosts.

We're going up against 20+ years of entrenched companies with billions of dollars. Most people don't care, or there's no money in it for them, or they don't know, or they don't understand.

I'm trying personally, video.firesidefedi.live, and professionally, tubefree.org, but it's difficult, expensive, and opens you up to a lot of potential problems.

Just keep spreading word, being welcoming, find ways you can contribute whatever you can.

We'll get there. :-)

Peertube has never worked for me. Every time there’s a link on Lemmy, I follow it but get a generic error about the video not loading or being unavailable.

My pet theory is that PeerTube is slower on the uptake because of two primary reasons:

1. YouTube Monetization
2. Content Production

Many YouTubers are comfortable staying right on YouTube, where they have the maximum impact, audience size, and money-making opportunities. For this group of people, moving off of YouTube just isn't viable.

Because of this, alternative video platforms have to rely on people who are willing to give PeerTube a shot. This is a combination of early adopters who are also on YouTube, people fed up with YouTube for whatever reason, and people in various social and political bubbles that would benefit from a more dedicated space for the things they care about.

The other thing is, video production is time consuming compared to other social mediums. Microblogging by comparison has incredibly little friction, to the point that people can do it potentially dozens of times per day. Making a quality documentary, review, or soapbox piece? A single episode of that can take multiple weeks or longer.

I actually think PeerTube is seeing some healthy growth, but discovering things I actually want to watch remains a challenge.

Peertube has been very difficult to setup and get going. Even just logging into the app. There's a MUCH better option from FUTO called Grayjay. Grayjay is unreal. Check it out.

I made some videos about a trip to Japan I took once, and I uploaded them to YouTube but because I'm an Open Source person I also tried to upload to PeerTube since they're all CC media. I think the one that was 20 minutes long failed to upload, so I didn't even try with my hour long ones.

I just decided it wasn't ready.

As much as YouTube isn't the friendliest company, I have to give them props at a technical level. I think a lot of people underestimate how hard it is to support something with so many huge files, at different levels of resolution, loading in a second, etc etc.

The only technical problems I have with YouTube are the things they intentionally are doing to try and mess with people.

In my experience, it’s mad slow

Check pinned posts at !peertube@lemmy.wtf

I think it has a lot to do with that we are trying to copy a model that only works for the mighty. Youtube depends on surveillance automatized algorithms. The surveillance is what makes their service work. This is not a type of algorithm we should copy from youtube. But that is what peertube has done. They rely on an algorithm that plays on surveillance. This means that the peertube experience is subpar.

What we should do instead is rely on algorithms that rely on people actively pointing out to likeminded videos. To let people be the algorithm just like how people were the algorithm of the early web. Perhaps that we associate our channel with other likeminded channels. Or that we actively point people towards the videos we think are relevant to the current video.