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The YouTube Alternative Nobody's Talking About ! Peertube (www.youtube.com)

submitted 4 days ago by mesamunefire@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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[-] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 23 points 3 days ago

A lot of people, despite using a federated reddit alternative, will think of any reason to discourage the use of peertube I've noticed. It doesn't need to REPLACE youtube, that's basically impossible. You can use Peertube WITH YouTube. "Does it do anything different than youtube?" You can control what gets deleted and what stays up. "That's the only thing? It needs to do more." You can livrestream with it, and why would it need to do more than youtube? It gives you fucking CONTROL back in your hands! This is all about putting the people, back in control of the internet! The p2p aspect of peertube makes this the best competitor a community has to these giant companies with their world burning server farms. Why is this so hard for people to not be fascinated with having an option you can run with old PC hardware?

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

hey I don't have time to watch this so I'll ask here since you're arguing in favor of it: how is storage handled? is it a concern? wouldn't any reasonable amount of storage have the risk of being almost immediately run out of space if the instance is even modestly popular?

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago

It gives you fucking CONTROL back in your hands! This is all about putting the people, back in control of the internet!

So do I2P, HyphaNet (formerly FreeNet) and ZeroNet. They're all P2P networks and can run on old hardware, with the drawback being that you can't access normal internet sites while connected to them

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

that sounds less like "a drawback" and more like "fucking unusable"

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 119 points 4 days ago

The fact that you posted a link to this video from YouTube not peer tube says a lot.

[-] ArtificialHoldings@lemmy.world 79 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The point is outreach to the other platform. Sending engagement to this video on YouTube will boost it due to YouTube's algorithm. More exposure on YouTube = more potential new PeerTube users. Publishing this on PeerTube is preaching to the choir. As an alternative platform, you always need to maintain a presence on the main platform so you can encourage people looking to leave.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 33 points 4 days ago

Publishing this on PeerTube is also a problem. I mentioned this in another post, but to expand, I really, really, want to like PeerTube. But:

Many running servers don't fully grasp the bandwidth requirements. The video I tried to watch in that post got "popular" (800 views) and it took 2 minutes to even get the progress bar to load. People will leave.
The federated nature is even more disjointed than Lemmy. It feels like a bunch of different sites still, which makes it feel like less content.

IMO PeerTube could be great, but it has a lot of shortcomings that aren't solved by adding features and fixing bugs.

[-] thedruid@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

It would better to make peer tube super easy to use without needing to do more than cluck once on. A button and get going

The thing holding open source back is the gatekeeping. Developers could spend more time actually working with u.i experts to make things easy, but no. Rather make everyone think it's some magic that requires 50 steps.

Make it easy to do business and give them a great product. That's all that needs to be done. Do that foss community, and you'll win.

[-] AugustWest@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

Can you show me an example of gatekeeping in this space? I am not sure that word means what you think it means.

I mean it is open source, ANYONE can create a different UI and fork the code, which is drastic but an option.

Are you saying you have submitted UI improvements as pull requests to several projects and had them tell you they would not merge due to a desire to keep the UI the way they designed it?

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[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 5 points 3 days ago

Working with you UX experts? You mean like hire them? With what money?

Otherwise, the UX experts need to step up and volunteer their services, just like programmers do when they create FOSS.

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[-] mrsingh@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

Peer tube is dead

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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 10 points 3 days ago

Sometimes, I think that peertube would work better as simply being a different section of a personal/private website. You know how some sites hosted their own videos back before youtube became "the only place to post videos"? Gametrailers, Machinima, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, etc.

Federation helps with discovery, but not much beyond that, I think.

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 124 points 4 days ago

The main value of youtube for many of us is the enormous video collection, which is impractical for anyone else to duplicate. Need to fix an old washing machine (I did, recently)? Type in the make and model and there's an instructional vid. It's unfortunate that Google has exclusive control over such a resource, but here we are.

[-] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 36 points 4 days ago

I think it’s running it at a loss too. But there’s no reason these platforms couldn’t be publicly owned.

[-] 3laws@lemmy.world 41 points 4 days ago

It was, but monetization has been so aggressively everywhere that I think they finally are in the black at least since 2018.

[-] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago

I had no idea. You’re right. It was a $15B business in 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019

Makes the ads seem even more obscene now that I know that.

[-] warm@kbin.earth 30 points 4 days ago

That only mentions revenue, we still don't know their operating costs.

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[-] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Publicly owned by which government? Because I don't think YouTube's home of the US is really a good choice right now.

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[-] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago

I wonder what would happen if Google decided to "turn off" YouTube.

[-] coldsideofyourpillow@lemmy.cafe 9 points 4 days ago

some random mfs with 400TB of hoarded YouTube videos will emerge out of hiding

[-] AugustWest@lemm.ee 13 points 4 days ago

And sadly now I have to watch a video. Wouldn't step by step instructions be quicker and more effective? Yes. They were. Now it's some video wasting my time.

Not sure that is a great example.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 31 points 4 days ago

Wouldn’t step by step instructions be quicker and more effective?

For this type of work, typically no, it's quicker and more effective to have someone show you exactly how to do it.

[-] thedruid@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

No. That's generalizing

It depends on the person learning. You may get more out of a video and I may get more from a book

[-] zerofk@lemm.ee 10 points 4 days ago

I hate that this has become so commonplace. Yes for some - mostly physical - things it’s much better if you can see someone do it. But finding an obscure setting in an app shouldn’t be a video.

Stuck on a 20 step installation process? Here’s a 10 minute video showing all the steps you already know before the phase you’re stuck. Sure you can scrub through it, but it’s still faster to skim and scroll through a text with images.

[-] sushibowl@feddit.nl 8 points 4 days ago

Unfortunately, when you do find a text article explaining the thing it's often unnecessarily long and padded out with meaningless fluff, just so more advertising can be stuffed within the contents.

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[-] belit_deg@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Maybe a silly idea, but what about a P2P-based video hosting! Hear me out:

We have more computing power and bandwith in our homes than ever before. We know that sharing data and files via P2P works, is resiliant against attacks, and scales really well.

No server costs mean that people could support creators by seeding the content to other peers. One cool thing about that would be seeing how you are making a difference, in real time.

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

The difficult part is not the software or even the hosting. It's more about the network effects and the ability to let users monetize uploads, which in turn creates vast potential for abuse and fraud, which in turn has to be addressed by burning stupendous resources. At a certain point people stop wanting exposure or "making a difference" for their own sake, and instead want to get paid in genuine coin of the realm.

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[-] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 18 points 4 days ago

These apps need ulterior uses.

Most know Matrix as an alternative to Discord.

has it replaced Discord? No, and it isn't likely to, buuuut Matrix is still a swiss-army-knife for other chat protocols via bridges, so it has its own use beyond Discord.

It's still useful, even alone.

What problem does Peertube solve beyond not being Youtube?

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 16 points 3 days ago

What problem does Peertube solve beyond not being Youtube?

Content creators can be in total control of their content and the platform, while still being able to reach the wider audience on the Fediverse.

There’s also features such as being able to replace an already uploaded video and for some, they would be happy not having to play the “algorithm game”.

[-] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago

A place to keep your videos in case of YouTube taking it off their site.

[-] sinnsykfinbart@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Right now, this is the only use.

[-] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago

It can also host your live streams, twitch has mandatory adds or something last time I checked after you gain a certain amount of viewers. If you multistream, you stream to twitch and inform them about your Peertube being add free.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 22 points 4 days ago

It's a nice thought but even this guy did not continue his Peertube instance. More of a thought experiment.

[-] hitagi@ani.social 21 points 4 days ago

I think Peertube is more of a Vimeo alternative. YouTube is built around advertising.

[-] haverholm@kbin.earth 9 points 4 days ago

Really? And here I thought they were all video platforms. Youtube advertising is just an added layer of enshittification.

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[-] sunth1ef@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 days ago

Joined PeerTube last month and have had great success with it in terms of as a platform and place to share art / content, though of course the views have been low.

I'm sure there is a megathread elsewhere but would love to see an acceleration of folks adopting the Fediverse. My talking point has been to sort of sell Fediverse alternatives (Lemmy, Pixelfed, Mastodon) as superior to other big tech alternatives out there (such as BlueSky and Flashes). We are either at the vanguard of a mass migration or just migrating while no one else is intending to, which I guess amounts to the same thing!

[-] quetzaldilla@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

Linux is finally becoming mainstream. I love it.

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[-] atro_city@fedia.io 9 points 4 days ago

If any of the top 500 youtube channels joined peertube, things would surely change. Unfortunately a few of those have started their own video platforms e.g Mr Beast has his own.

I'm sure if a few of the top youtube channels of the biggest countries joined peertube that would also give an important push to peertube.

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[-] ImmersiveMatthew@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago

Same issue as Lemmy. Not enough people see centralized media as an issue and thus the status quo will continue.

[-] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Ehhh, I feel it's not just that.

Yeah, people don't think centralized media is an issue, and thus don't join Fediverse, causing it to be a little dead and discourages others from using it as an alternative.

However, YT is a job for the thousands that create content on there, and reasonably so, they need money to make said content and pay bills. Which means ads, cause be real, most people (including me) don't wanna join a Patreon to see their content. I just can't think of many creators who I love enough to drop consistent money on them, never mind several at once.

Lemmy doesn't need to be monetized to entice people, because Reddit wasn't built on that (karmawhoring gets you no money). Even pixelfed could make it as an alternative, because creators aren't paid by ads or Insta themselves, they get money from sponsorships and promoting their shops.

But YT? It's built to make money from putting in ads. So unless creators lived off of sponsors alone and the few who subscribe to Patreon, they're shit outta luck if they join Peertube.

EDIT: Completely forgot the server side of it, but was reminded of that fact by this comment on the Degoogle community about YT:

YouTube is expensive as all fuck to run. This is why alternatives will never take off unless they have a solid monetization model (e.g. floatplane). Sorry, but people on home internet with 100 down and 30 up aren't going to be able to host peertube nodes and stream 4k video to more than a couple people. Text and music work well decentralized, but people start to become a lot less able to contribute when hosting costs become hundreds per month and their home internet is saturated and barely usable instead of single digits with light traffic. This isn't even mentioning content creators' monetization.

[-] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 2 points 3 days ago

YT became popular before monatization existed. It was a hobby and a form of socialization for many people. I'd rather see Peertube be that than what YT has become. Monatization is what ruined it, imo.

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[-] Marthirial@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

Like with fucking, friction is the difference between pleasure and pain. If I click a YT link and the video starts playing, no lag, no buffering, just plays, I will come back.

I tried to watch the French dude describing Texas, hosted on Peertube. It took 17 minutes, 3 attempts, 2 error messages, lag while playing.

Can't change the paradigm with thrift.