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] 9 points 4 days ago

that's the chicken and egg problem of any social network: people don't want to go to a social network with only a few number of content creators and content creators don't want to spend their time managing another platform for only a few number of viewer... social networks needs people to be alive and so if you are interested in Peertube, it will be hard at first but use it so, just like voting system where every vote count, the platform will have one more user and if other people do the same, the platform will grow and if it grow enough it will start to attract bigger content creator, etc...

It's in people hand to break the cycle and makes that Youtube alternative a viable alternative.

I'm a peertube instance admin for years now and closed my google/youtube account 10 years ago, so I'm doing my part to break it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Check out the two pinned posts here: [email protected]

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[–] roofuskit 7 points 4 days ago (15 children)

I couldn't even get an account on the instance I most wanted because they seem to only give accounts to creators. So now I cannot follow anyone on that instance, or like their videos, or comment. So I have to figure out what other instance I can get an account on and follow from there, hoping they federated with each other.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

they seem to only give accounts to creators

Yea this is a bit silly. It seems like they manually approve user accounts because they need to be careful with the uploads using up their storage. But a way better solution would be to approve users more liberally, and user accounts would be created without a channel so they cannot upload anything, and creating channels needs to be approved. That way people can freely make user accounts for browsing/following, and the admins can still restrict spam channels from being created and uploading videos.

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

they seem to only give accounts to creators

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'll get in trouble for saying it, but I think that PeerTube is for video channels what Lemmy should be for communities. It should be that if you want to start or moderate a community, then you sign up to Lemmy, but if you just want to interact with one, you use a user account provided by software that's fully geared up around users (e.g. Mastodon).

Ignoring for the moment that Lemmy's federation model hasn't been widely adopted, and that comments from Mastodon that appear in Lemmy often have annoying Hashtag / Mention spam, my fantasy version of a post in a Lemmy community would look something like https://tilvids.com/w/wjTD7fp9qy4KmTkBdSoWyc, which was created by a PeerTube user, but has been commented on and voted for by users from Mastodon, Sharkey, PieFed, other PeerTube instances, and MBIN.

Amongst those subscribers, commenters, and voters should be Lemmy users, of course. In this thread, it feels like PeerTube is being criticised by people who want to use it in a way that it's not designed for, because they can't interact with it from their Lemmy account. If inter-op was better, there'd be no need to create a new account anywhere, and it would have a network effect - the channels that people are trying to discover would already have been brought in by other users, and findable through a conventional Lemmy search. Also, the votes and comments from Lemmy users that are currently going to whoever takes a PeerTube video and posts it in the likes of [email protected], would instead be going to original creator. This would also aid discovery (since people would be more likely to see the channel in 'all'), and might have also some incentivising influence on the creator.

Basically, I blame Lemmy.

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

Basically, I blame Lemmy.

Peertube is older than Lemmy though.

What you suggest isn't actually a bad idea, but if that was the goal then they shouldn't even pretend to support user accounts only channel accounts, channel accounts wouldn't need to be able to like/comment/subscribe either. They wouldn't have to bother with their UI rendering likes/dislikes/comments, they wouldn't need buttons to subscribe, and they wouldn't need a mobile app either. It's a good idea, just be a video backend and only support the embedded video player (as it appears on Mastodon), but it doesn't seem like that was their goal.

They support everything, they just don't encourage it? A logged in user doesn't use much more server resources than an anonymous user. It's still fetching all the video stats and comments, and of course the video itself which is the biggest thing. Kinda seems like it's just for moderation concerns.

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

I think they still need a separate user account. For one thing, a PeerTube channel is 'attributedTo' the user account, in the same way that Lemmy communities are 'attributedTo' the moderators. A Group belongs to at least one Person, it can't belong to itself. Another is that it allows for creators to comment on videos, and either be recognised as the 'OP', or as a fellow content creator.

In terms of rendering things like Likes and Dislikes, it has the info in the backend, so it may as well. They don't Announce votes like Lemmy does, you have to activitely fetch them, so the channel as it exists on PeerTube provides a definitive source. Likewise, there's all sorts of reasons why comments get out of sync, so the channel provides an authoritative place where you should be able to see them all.

There is a friction though. I like the idea of a place that only open to people willing to create content, and isn't interested in signups from 'lurkers', but providing a mobile app doesn't seem compatible with that.

[–] roofuskit 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. The way it is structured seems to forget people who watch the videos are an important part of the community.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think peer tube federation is opt in not opt out like most other services.

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[–] mesamunefire 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Yeah the search is the worst part. As others have said the technology is there, we just need a better search.

The other issue is Lemmy (and perhaps other platforms) has issues with Peertube channels. I can't direct link Peertube for activityhub posts. Lemmy is a no go. [email protected] Piefed for example works: https://piefed.social/c/[email protected]

I host one and don't plan on taking it down anytime soon! If anyone likes dog videos: @teddy_[email protected]

He's a good boy.

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