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PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

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Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#41

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

> What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). I agree. The current Youtube creators have built their models on advertisement, clicks, favorites, etc. etc. PeerTube will never be for them. There's simply no money in PeerTube right now. That's fine however. There's a large section of creators, such as Blender, Edu…

>There's a large section of creators, such as Blender, Education (think OpenCourseWare / MIT), Linux Conference publishers who will benefit from PeerTube.

That's what I'm hoping for. Educational and instructional videos are my main use for YouTube, YT happens to be where they are hosted, I care very little about anything else related to the site so for me PeerTube could potentially be perfect for my use.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#42

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

Youtube started banning politically inconvenient youtubers. And it's their right. That alone is a good enough reason for an alternative, centralized or not.

The end user doesn't care about the underlying technology, as long as it works.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#43

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

I think you're confuning centralization with a walled garden. Because if what you said were true, then why would Disney be buying Hulu?

The larger of a content creator I am, the more I want to control distribution.

Having my content on a site with someone else's rules sucks, because I am at their mercy.

For example, with Disney owning Hulu, they can tell Google to go F-off, and never worry about their content being accidentally censored, deleted, etc.

For a smaller content producer, the value might even be more significant, even if the dollars are less.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#44

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not).

You need a centralized discovery service (this is where Tor, I2P, Freenet, IPFS, etc. all fail). Centralized content hosting is different.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#45

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

Podcasts are, for the most part, decentralized and seem to be still booming in popularity. I don’t see why a decentralized video platform couldn’t work too.

Other than the much smaller scales podcasts operate on, are there any podcasts where the host has turned it into a living? There's a _lot_ of video creators out there who make those videos as their sole source of income now.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#47
Without taking away any of the merit of succeeding in crowdfunding anything:

people go to YouTube because there are awesome content creators that produce content you want to watch.

Content creators make money via Patron, but mostly via ads. If PeerTube became successful enough to get a lot of content creators, they would eventually want to monetize their videos.

PeerTube would now have to introduce things like "censorship" to make sure advertisers stayed on the platform, etc. etc. and eventually you would have YouTube again.

Personally, I really enjoy YouTube. I have an ad blocker and never see any ad whatsoever (although I did support a few content creators via Patreon in the past), the interface is great, none of the channels I subscribe to have ever experienced censorship or bad interference from Google--although they do play by the rules.

I really welcome alternatives, but the community on YouTube is absolutely great, and I really enjoy the platform. It won't be easy to make a lot of people change their mind, unless you offer something different (for instance, Vimeo with really good quality videos mostly, and short professional movies).

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#48

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

Podcasts are, for the most part, decentralized and seem to be still booming in popularity. I don’t see why a decentralized video platform couldn’t work too.

Really? I don't agree here.

I've never seen any that weren't being pushed to one of the major podcast apps - and thusly centralized. I mean, the whole term comes from the fact that it was originally downloadable to your iPod through iTunes. None of the podcasts I've ever found could really be considered decentralized - they might have a webpage somewhere, sure, but if they're not in Apple's iTunes/Podcast app, I'm not going to find them. Honestly, I haven't found a decent alternative on Android - I know there are several but none have as robust a catalog. I even use iTunes on Windows for podcast searching.

It's a very centralized market around specific aggregators. Could it weather a transition to a decentralized market structure if Apple were to disown it tomorrow? Maybe, but it would take a lot of energy to get there.

Re: PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

#50

What the people who want decentralized services don't realize is that the content creators want centralized services (whether they realize it or not). In the old days we needed YouTube because you needed a Flash encoder if you wanted to make video accessible on the web to everyone. Now anyone can host video on anything. You can throw even throw some comments on the bottom if you want. But what those who create want i…

I think you're on to something.

> How many attempts at decentralized social networks have failed? All of them.

When I've tried to build decentralized code, it's 10x harder.

IMO, the real problem with creating a decentralized replacement for a centralized service is multi-fold: You have to really understand the use case that you're trying to replace, and the nuances that drive the general public to that particular service. Then, things like search and quality control become much harder.

On top of that, "decentralized" isn't a feature that most people really care about, so your decentralized replacement has to have tangible improvements above and beyond the original service.

Remember: The web is decentralized, but we rely on a few search engines. Email is decentralized, but most of us get email from a few providers. The web and email had tangible improvements over AOL, Compuserve, ect.

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