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PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

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Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#301
post #41

As a professional YouTuber, the main issue I instantly see with this is the lack of monetization. I think people who don't make videos for a living severely underestimate how expensive it is to produce high-quality videos people want to watch. This isn't like writing a tweet or even posting a picture on Instagram. Even a decent 20-minute video can easily take 40 man-hours of high-skilled labor. I have a pretty small…

As a professional watcher, I consider the lack of monetization a feature. I'd much rather see genuine videos from amateurs than commercialized crap with sponsored segments and undisclosed sponsorships and product placement and filler to keep up release schedules and please like and subscribe and whatever other dark patterns commercially motivated video producers come up with on "free" platforms. And of course also without the ads the video platform adds on top of all that. Not everything needs to be a viable job.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#302

I like the idea of all of these federated services but why does the UX always feel like an afterthought when it is the most important factor for adoption?

Same reason why the Linux desktop often suffers on the UX/UX front: people naturally drawn to these projects tend to lean heavily technical, and highly technical circles have a bad habit of driving out less technical contributors through devaluation of their work and lack of agency within the project among other issues. That sort of work also tends to be less well-compensated than that of SWEs which makes it more imp…

Not that I disagree, but I find it a bit harsh.

I know many developers who make at least some open source contributions, be it to an existing project or by open sourcing their own.

It has never, ever happened to me that a UI/UX person opened a PR saying "here, I made a logo for your project because I know how".

I think that there is a cultural thing, where UI/UX people don't consider that they have to work for free on the Internet, and software developers have a tendency to believe they should, "for their CV" or something.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#303
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 100M+ channels uploading on YouTube regularly and only 2-3M of them are monetized. Not everyone wants to upload videos on the internet with the explicit goal of making money. Professional creators are a very tiny minority, and a platform like YouTube will always be better suited for them (your "small" channel with 100K subscribers is actually in the top 0.5-0.1% of YouTube). There is no reason for Peertube…

Then there's even less reason to host outside of YouTube, why would I want to host a server that costs money if I'm not making any money from the videos? It works for those who want to own their content and verify its safety, or for ideological reasons such as supporting OSS but I'm not sure why the average user would care about PeerTube.

I guess you also never contribute to any potluck where you're not strictly required to?

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#304
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling get rich quick schemes, workout plans, etc?

A bit more like Kevin Powell, who publishes lots of free CSS videos [0], has some good basic CSS Training Courses for free, but charges money for the advanced ones [1]. His videos are not only available on his site, but they're also on Front End Masters, which is a well known training site. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@KevinPowell [1] https://www.kevinpowell.co/courses/

While I can't speak specifically to this person's earnings, I suspect you're overestimating just how much money average YouTubers make from owned platforms when they try to push their audiences to them.

It's very difficult to do this in a way that produces sustainable, durable revenue, and I suspect that people doing technical educational content are finding it increasingly difficult in the age of AI.

Trends for his YouTube channel look pretty much like what I expected given the general trends in the marketplace.

https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCJZv4d5rbIKd4QHMPkc...

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As a professional YouTuber, the main issue I instantly see with this is lack of monetization." As a computer user I see that as the main advantage No third party intermediary No advertising Computer users need peer-to-peer options for sharing video with each other that do not use third party advertising companies, e.g., posing as "search engine" or "social media", to transfer the bits Whether PeerTube works well, I…

the 3rd party isn't an intermediary, youtube content is fantastic because it found a way to pay people to produce something for every niche, and reward the ones doing well with more viewers and more money. ofc you would prefer high quality content delivered directly to you for free, because you're ignore the producers perspective.

Youtube rewards producers who use any dark pattern they can think of to get more views. This results in videos that are extremely awful to watch if your brain hasn't already been turned to pulp.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#306
post #48
post #41

As a professional YouTuber, the main issue I instantly see with this is the lack of monetization. I think people who don't make videos for a living severely underestimate how expensive it is to produce high-quality videos people want to watch. This isn't like writing a tweet or even posting a picture on Instagram. Even a decent 20-minute video can easily take 40 man-hours of high-skilled labor. I have a pretty small…

You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider. Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube. Otherwise, you will always be subject to platform risk via YouTube's whims which has destroyed many…

> Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube.

This reads like MBA advice but the reality is not that simple. For a variety of reasons, relatively few people have the ability to produce durable revenue over the long term by pushing their YouTube audience to owned platforms.

The most successful YouTubers get a lot of attention but the reality is that outside of the 1%, there is no "long term winning play" for most of these people. The average YouTuber who finds some success building an audience tries to milk it for as long as they can before they're supplanted by new faces, they burn out, their category loses appeal, algorithms change, etc.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any communities (subreddit equivalents) you would recommend?

I mainly visit my country's community, news and browse comics/memes. More niche topics could be more active, I admit.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a professional YouTuber, the main issue I instantly see with this is the lack of monetization. As a video watcher, the main issue I have with YouTube is the presence of monetization.

Because people are expected to spend their time, effort and money to provide content for you for free, of course. Seems like the only explanation.

I don't really expect anything. All the people who want to make money from YouTube can just stop making stuff if money is what's motivating them.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#309
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider. Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube. Otherwise, you will always be subject to platform risk via YouTube's whims which has destroyed many…

Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market. Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos. They are going to fire up YT and eat what the algorithm feeds them. The reason PeerTube and Nebula are important is it provides the potential for a t…

Do people go looking for videos?

I think I go to YouTube because it has interesting content, and the fact it's in video form isn't particularly relevant. Some content must be in video form but not all of it. I also follow several blogs, and Hacker News. I used to use Reddit when it was less enshittified, the way I use YouTube now. I don't know why I don't follow Nebula - I have a subscription because I want to support more independent platforms.

Re: PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform

#310

Last time I tried it the federation was whitelist based, that is you could only follow people on instances added by the admin of your instance. This made content discovery difficult.

It's not a platform, it's server-side software for creating a platform.
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