Peertube

Honestly I'd love to set up a big "default" instance myself, but as soon as you become a big advert for everyone else to set up their channel on your instance, server costs will go through the roof. I'm in England and Peertube.wtf generally works better for me, but even then it seems to randomly crash and reload on longer videos like stream VODs, so maybe it is a geography thing.

I think part of the problem is that you are doing what a lot of people naturally, but mistakenly, do. Compare it to YouTube.

PeerTube isn't trying to be YouTube. The only thing they have in common, is showing videos. That's it.

YouTube is a commercialized and corporate owned video aggregator that takes their users, changes them into commodities, and then monetizes the content from it's creators who are forced to follow the dictates of an algorithm if they wish to get a fraction of the value that they've put in.

PeerTube is a decentralized and federated video aggregator that is owned by the people. The users remain users and there is no monetization or algorithm which forces a user to follow. Any monetary compensation is strictly between the user and their audience.

The problem you're talking about isn't a problem with PeerTube, it's a problem with norms set by corporate entities. People hate to learn new ways of doing things. PeerTube isn't that hard to use once you understand the basics and how it integrates into the Fediverse. There's a reason that most PeerTube instances don't accept registrations from people who aren't creating videos. Aside from cutting down on spam and bad actors, there's really no need for it. Want to find a video? Do a Mastodon (or other Fedi service) search for the appropriate title or hashtag. Then you can follow the creator and get notifications. You can even comment and like and boost.

In other words, no one needs a PeerTube account unless they are making videos.

But that isn't the norm. YouTube is the norm and people mistakenly expect a YouTube like service. So when they see that things are different, their brain short circuits.

But unlike a lot of people, I don't see this as a problem. I think it's a feature.

The fact that it forces people to learn a new non corporate lead way of doing things opens up a world of benefits that non Fedi people can't even imagine. Choice? Control? They have no real understanding of what those things really are. And because they aren't willing to learn something new, they get upset and don't bother trying. Which is fine with me. Because it means every instance is filled with people who were willing to break out of the mold and learn something new. THAT'S a feature.

So yes, while PeerTube isn't perfect and still has bugs to work out, it's fairly good at what it's supposed to do. Which is to serve videos to the Fedi and not just PeerTube. Anything else you want it to do or be, is based on your own biases that you most likely picked up from corporate owned services.

For a consumer finding videos is the key. I often have the feeling that videos dont want to be found because it creates costs if somebody watches them. Navigation between instances in pipepipe is a desaster. Looking for a specific topic usually results in zero hits, even sepia search is defective at best. What would help is one or more centralised servers which list videos on different instances. If a creator wants to be found he can list the video there, if not the video is not for public view anyway

i just checked out my peertube picks browser extension to see whats available. I made the browser extension, but i do want the idea of "collect your own data, run your own algorithm" to take off

I just worry that if I go there and post streams and stuff that I'm gonna be using up storage and not really providing content of proportional value. The scale of Google's datacenters makes the average cost per storage much lower than anything consumers and even small companies can obtain.

Well, the problem that I see is that we do have a platform but don't have an easy way to use it. If Mastodon allows to browse the PeerTube with all other fediverse platforms together, that we just need an app that will copy Mastodon but with limitations and optimizations for only video content. I do not say that this will solve all the problems, but this can improve the experience.

Another Fediverse newbie here... recognize the issues and wish the xp would be better. But, I do realize that the PeerTube/Fediverse model is different. YT has 15+ yrs head start and a spectacular cashflow. How could the level of maturity any different? In fact, I was very much impressed by the current features.

So yes, PeerTube is not on the level of YT. But, I'm glad it exists. Something to switch to, when the time comes that ads will become unavoidable, even with apps like NewPipe.

It would be cool if everyone shared their favourites, for their friends & family, and so on. Wouldn't break the bank (many have both the storage and bandwidth requirements in this scenario already).