I know, the platform isn’t ready, the platform needs more creators, the platform has technical improvements to do…We could have said the same for Lemmy before the Reddit blackout, the same for Mastodon on Twitter.
The main limitation I see at the moment are PeerTube instances, badly communicating, from what I’ve been able to realize, and there are no reference instances as it was for Lemmy.
#viralhashtag
YouTube has an ace up its sleeve:
It shares revenue 50-50 (roughly) with creators. And considering the server costs and promotional benefit, that 50% cut is very fairly priced.
Facebook, Twitter/X, Reddit, etc. never shared revenue with creators. And that makes them easily replaceable. But Google wisely made YouTube and video creators financially reliant on one another. And that makes it difficult for something like PeerTube to pop up in a way Mastadon has.
The thing about peertube is that the instances feel very separated compared to lemmy. When I goto all on lemmy I can see all except a small handful of instances. But on peertube I can barely see anything
This belongs to your instance settings. Is your instance following other instances/channels, how is search configured and so on.
So if I make my own instance then I can have it like lemmy where it automatically federates everything?
I’m a(n extremely) small time streamer but with decades of content (plus more as I stream on both PeerTube and Twitch) that I’m slowly moving over to my own self-hosted PeerTube instance. I can’t say I expected any views at all, but what I have gotten so far is just a lot of bot spam comments. I can’t imagine that’s something most creators want to deal with.
Is the problem that I’m self-hosting and having to moderate that on my own? Probably. But it doesn’t paint a great picture of the platform at large so far.
I’ve been thinking a bit about this the past several weeks. Here’s how I think we can get useful content on Peertube, quickly:
- Contact creators who make specifically non-monetized content and see if they are willing to post on Lemmy too. New content, and we could offer to post their existing content on Peertube for them
- Early YouTube content. There was some scare a while back about YouTube videos older than three years being removed. Turned out to be a misunderstanding, but it reinforced that Google can remove old content whenever they want, for whatever reason they want.
- Provide continual support (if necessary) for content creators who want to post on PeerTube. For instance, a creator may say “Sure, you can post what you want, just provide attribution. But you’re going to need to post it on there yourself.”
Some things we don’t want to get into:
- Ability for anyone to post. We’d have a moderation nightmare and we don’t have the resources to deal with it. Trolls posting garbage or CSAM. We need the Peertube instance intensely curated/moderated. -Re-posting content that is monetized on other platforms. We don’t have legal resources to deal with takedown complaints. We need explicit permission from creators for everything we upload.
Those are the thoughts I’ve had. I think it leads to an instance with good, curated content. Limited in how it’s used, but I think that’s the best for now.
There’s a serious onboarding problem for people who do not yet have the skills to make worthwhile content here.
People who can create a yt-channel an upload videos there should be able to do the same on peertube… whats the problem?
Ok…
On youtube, your account is your channel. On Peertube, you can create more than one channel with your account.
Personally I find that the problem is that no one will let me in.
(Or even respond to the request!)
And sure, I can just start my own server and keep that up to date and running.
I acknowledge that, but that’s just one more thing that gets in the way, and I have enough things to learn as it is.
Also, sure, some of these sites must at some time have responded to requests, and some might still do so, it’s just a simple matter of trying again, right?
I publish some short videos from time to time. Watching a train, my cat or something else, the whole world should know. 😄
So i selfhost my own peertube-instance.
The main reason os, to know how this works to selfhost such an instance. Because i want to have the knowledge for. I believe in the future of this platform.
And i use my peertube to make copies from youtube videos i want to have, in case they disappear from yt for some reason. Just to build my own comfortable videothek. Most of my videos are “internal” or “unlisted” in case of copyright-violences.
Monetizing videoviews… hmmm… i know, creators get a life from ads… but i hate advertisings. I really hate them. And i think, if someone wsnt to life from creating content, they should place products. Srlfmade ad, reading a text, marked as ad… such as many creators do this. Get paid per video/ad, not per view.
Streaming always comes from the original instance. (I know, p2p and assist hosting) so… if a creator hosts its own peertube, he gets the WHOLE amount of his sponsoring. For his work and for his hosting-costs too.
Its another way of getting money. Creators have to learn a bit more than producing a video, upload it and so on. But hosting a peertube is not that difficult.
Maybe is a managed service, a “one-click-hosting” the future for peertube. Just bring up a whole instance as easy as create a new YT-Channel… like hetzner do it with nextcloud (shared storage).
Some peaple here are too focused on the actual paradigm, instead of supporting new ones. We should also consider a few points:
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You can keep your core business wherever you want but still having your second home at PeerTube, and maybe upload exclusive content to it (donations and Patreon-like services are still the main gain for many creators).
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Most of the uploaders on YouTube are very little creators without gains, they could actually have a chance to differentiate theirself from the masses on a potential new platform.
