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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

#311

I used it a few months ago but there was lag and things not working. I keep on saying we need to eliminate Google for real. I mean it too. But the services NEED TO BE FLAWLESS if you want to have a chance against Google. I don't understand why people don't seem to understand it. Software can often be better. PeerTube's software was disappointing and really poorly implemented compared to Google. There is no way to win…

It's not possible for FOSS to compete with Google in Google's niche — try it and you'll see why. It's possible to find a different niche and expand there.

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

#312
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that all of those accounts that don't earn money don't earn money because they get no views, because they make videos no one wants to watch. I don't know the exact statistics but a simple Google search says that 3% of videos on YouTube get 95% of the views. Remove the top 3% of creators, you remove 95% of views. The top channels get all the views because they're the only ones making videos people want…

> The problem is that all of those accounts that don't earn money don't earn money because they get no views, because they make videos no one wants to watch. That's an absurd statement. Every video I've uploaded has gotten some views. Very few videos get zero views. People forget that historically, Youtube wasn't a place for "content creators", but really just for people to share stuff with friends. Easily 95% of upl…

> Easily 95% of uploaders are not trying to make any money

While we’re making up statistics, easily 99.9% of viewers are trying to watch content that does.

> People forget that historically, Youtube wasn't a place for "content creators", but really just for people to share stuff with friends.

Utterly useless statement.

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

#313
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the strongest endorsement of peertube I've seen so far

The strongest endorsement for PeerTube is that it cannot sustain creators and thus will only either 1) freeboot off of platforms that do or 2) be flooded by low effort slop?

People who spam slop are exactly the ones who chase after monetization.

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

#314
post #76
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually all of the content I watch on youtube does not fall into this category. The content I watch is a mixture of raw footage, a guy speaking to a camera with minimal editing for 10 minutes (think Rick Beato, for those who know him), edited down footage of people working (pool cleaning guys, chefs, etc) or people playing music. Frankly I wouldn't care at all if all of your over-produced thumbnail-bait disappeared…

This is just a great example of people who aren't in content creation fundamentally not understanding the ecosystem. This isn't about "over-produced thumbnail-bait". This is about all high-quality media. You mention Rick Beato. Do you really think Rick Beato sits down behind his laptop to edit his own videos? He has nearly 6 million subscribers and produces around 10 long-form videos per month. He has at the very lea…

We understand your "ecosystem" well enough to despise it.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The matter of compensation or donation can be handled completely separately. Creators can be supported on other platforms like Liberapay, Patreon, Kofi, and many creators are supported that way. If we are talking about clickbait and making money from getting unwanted ads in people's faces, no thank you we don't need more of that.

No one donates money. It doesn't happen. Conversion rates across the board are around 1%. And then of those donations, most are the lowest tier/lowest increment. It's the most annoying and persistent counterpoint brought up in these discussions, but it has no grounding in reality. The most popular contingent of viewers are ad-supported, close behind are ad-blocking, then the last 5% are your subscribers and donators.

If you are talking about "conversion rates" then yes donations aren't for you. Go somewhere else.

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

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. No one asked OP to use peertube. This is software for people who want to share videos. Coming in and declaring you won't use it because you can't make money from your videos should just get an "okay?" Interjecting into a FOSS space and complaining they are not paying you is beyond bizarre. Doubling down when people basically say "actually I'm specifically looking for non-commercial groups, so your absenc…

> As a video watcher, the main issue I have with YouTube is the presence of monetization. I was replying to that. This commenter is not a hobbyist making video, he watches some hobbyists video, and them getting paid is the issue he has.

The issue he has is he wants to find/communicate with hobbyists, and instead runs into people trying to turn it into a profession. It becomes difficult to find like-minded people when every topic is infected by grifters. Injecting money into a leisure activity will inevitably ruin it and the people participating.

The reason why is on full display here: this entire thread has been derailed by people asking how you're supposed to make money with it, denigrating people who "only" have 100 subscribers (imagine 100 people regularly coming to watch you give a talk or demo or performance out of pure interest!), etc.

In a hobby or leisure space, appreciation or encouragement alone is valuable. Monetizing leisure leads to some crazy ideas. Like completely turning the perspective around: "content creators" think what they're doing is interesting enough that not only will I give them my attention, but that I should somehow compensate them for it? Crazy.

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

#317

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…

Or maybe there is no universally better UX and people who work for free want to create what works for themselves and not some top down designers vision. After all most mainstream software completely ignores the needs of power users.

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

#318
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube does crack down on them, all the time. Why do you think they are "important"? What are they contributing, and to whom? How does Google benefit?

They half-ass crack down on them. Not even that, it's dime-assed crackdown at best. You get that little "experiencing issues?" note that the bottom of the screen (which goes away after a few seconds), and an occasional 3-5s delay before video starts. I explained exactly why I think they are important in that entire paragraph. And the evidence I'm right is the fact that YouTube could trivially prevent ad-blockers tomo…

Though anytime I do land on actual YouTube, and not an invidious instance to watch a video, and am confronted how utterly crap the YouTube frontend and their video player is, I gotta wonder, whether the crackdown is half-assed, or simply the maximum of what they are capable of developing.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an absolutely bizarre thing to write in response to a link to a completely free software project with 541 contributors. Here you have hundreds of people who are exactly giving away highly skilled work for free.

Software has such a vibrant open source scene because software has probably the biggest impact-per-unit-time out of anything ever created and it has close to zero development cost and distribution cost. It's basically, skill+laptop+time. That's all you need to get a product in the hands of millions. There is a reason why there is mountains of free software and comparative dust mounds of free media, free hardware, fre…

LLM progress in the last year notwithstanding, software is not cheap to develop. I wouldn't be surprised if e.g. this project had multiple millions of dollars of labor embedded in it.

Software, like media, is simply free to replicate, and there's a much stronger culture of "I made this for me, and it costs me nothing to give it to you too, so you can have it too." There is a lot of free media out there though: music, art, short films, games or game mods, etc. What they don't have is marketing.

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

#320
The biggest problem I see is that you need to search for videos. If this is going to work you need a YouTube like home page with videos on it and a different webpage talking about the tech. Using a search page to find videos instead of being presented with one is a non starter.
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