this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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I saw a few videos shared on PeerTube recently, and created an account on an instance. However, unlike Mastodon and Lemmy I'm struggling to discover channels to subscribe to. When I use the search functions on my instance, most results are either interesting channels which haven't been updated in years, or random foreign language TV shows and episodes.

Just for example, if I'm trying to find videos on "Gaming" on one of the largest instances, the most recent video is over 1 year ago: https://tilvids.com/search?categoryOneOf=7

Is discoverability on PeerTube bad, or are there barely any active channels?

Edit: BTW one very active creator on PeerTube is https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos and his videos are excellent. But can there really only be a handful of active creators to follow on the whole platform?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Both.

Peertube made this asinine decision to make federating opt-in, so most instances are just places where the owner can jerk themselves off for excluding everything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

Yes and no.

By default anyone can follow your instance.

If you want your instance to follow others, you either have to type them in manually or use “auto-follow”, which needs to be enabled manually.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Seems difficult to build it as a social media if it's inherently unsocial.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Who said YOU could say words???

revokes your right to comment

We'll be having none of that interaction, and social stuff here!!!!

.......why isn't peertube taking off???

(/joke)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That seems... like a poor choice.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We use it in our company because we don't want to upload videos only we use to Google.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So it's more useful as a video player than a YouTube replacement?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

Well, it is used mainly to share videos so we don't have to send them or save them directly to file server. I'd say it has many of the features YT has, so I would say it is possible to replace YT with it, but the problem with videos - as opposed to images or text - is that they take fuckton of space.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The discoverability is incredibly bad. Peertube has a ton of videos and more servers than lemmy by a long shot iirc. The problem is that the „frontend“ has seen no love like ever. There recently came an app which is nice but otherwise, its very underloved.

Feel free to voice your concerns in [email protected] for example. The devs should be available through the fedi somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

The frontend is nice, I actually enjoy it. Lots of functionality and fairly easy to navigate.

The problem is the culture around peertube instance: most owners are copying each other by not federating or allowing users to easily upload videos.

Essentially, most of the admins are afraid to actually host a video platform so they do anything in their power to prevent others from using it.

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[–] rocky1138 15 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It's really just missing a great instance. Most of them look really shady or are not accepting new users.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

Check the out the pinned post here about instances: [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Most established hosters would be fearful to run an instance of peertube. Costs could balloon out of nowhere and would only increase with time. There is no way donations would keep up with costs, and charging to watch or a subscription would never take off.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

There are no great instances because all federation is opt-in.

There's also no general, standard "Peertube affiliated" instance that tries to federate with as many others as possible.

I think there were just some very poor design decisions made for the platform by people who don't know what they're doing.

Ex: Blurring sensitive videos blurs the title as well, without the option to change it.

The community doesn't help because most instances have "request an account" nonsense or literally don't allow users to upload videos.

I re-iterate my previous comment: "most instances are just places where the owner can jerk themselves off for excluding everything."

There will be great peertube instances, but the culture needs to change first.

That said, check out https://dalek.zone/. It's one of the few peertube instances I've come across that legitimately seems interested in making it a viable platform. Registrations and uploading new videos don't require approval, and it federates with way more instances than average.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Check out the pinned posts here: [email protected] for info on instances that fits your needs.

You can mouse over the blurred title and see what it is.

[–] captain_aggravated 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do we need to start over? Like fork PeerTube and fix all the "We choose to do this wrong because our parents didn't hug us as children" problems?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, I don't think it's anywhere near that bad.

I just think that going forward, Peertube developers and instance owners should make the platform more accessible and interconnected.

It's a bigger responsibility to actually host content instead of just links to content, which I don't think most peertube instance owners can handle.

[–] captain_aggravated 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But federating with other instances IS links to content, not hosting content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm actually referring to both. Instance owners are afraid to allow users to host content and they're afraid to link to servers that host content.

[–] captain_aggravated 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So why run an instance in the first place then?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Good question. My honest answer is 🧩.

I've seen it enough in the tech sphere to recognize it for what it is.

[–] [email protected] 115 points 2 days ago (19 children)

It's both horrible discovery and a limited number of creators.

But, for discoverability, https://sepiasearch.org/ might help you find things to watch, since it's the only good multi-server search I've seen. (And run by the peertube devs.)

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 days ago (22 children)

I say this everytime someone talks about peertube. You should not need to leave the website to use the website. If I search "crazy guy uses rake to play football", and it's not in the results page, I'm not going to go to ANOTHER website, to search THIS website, for a guy who doesn't understand how to play sports.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The thing is, there may be content that people will find on Sepia search that you DO NOT want on your instance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you mean hosted on your instance, that you own, can you not delete content?

If you mean you join an instance, and it has this content on it, well then you picked the wrong instance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

If you mean hosted on your instance, that you own, can you not delete content?

You can. At which point it would be unsearchable.

If you mean you join an instance, and it has this content on it, well then you picked the wrong instance.

You're thinking of this as a viewer and not a host.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I completely agree.

Normally, you wouldn't have to do this. The problem is that Peertube devs made the HORRIBLE decision to make federating "opt-in" only. This means most content isn't available on most instances. It's a snowball effect where most owners make the decision without thinking to have some mystical barrier to enter their esteemed federation.

They don't understand that most users don't give a shit about "proving" themselves to enter some random person's instance. (and rightfully so)

Peertube made a lot of good choices, but a lot of bad ones too by the censorship/walled garden crowd.

Hopefully someone with more resources than me can run an instance that fills this void: just let people upload and interact like youtube back in the early 2000s.

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