[yorwba]

Federation in this case means that you can watch videos from site A on site B, simultaneously seeding it for other users, reducing bandwidth cost for A. This only happens if site B federates with site A, meaning that it lists videos A hosts in its catalog (a mild suggestion to maybe watch them). Site A would be unable to include ads, except by baking them into the videos or descriptions etc.

I'm pretty sure PeerTube isn't aiming to provide an easy way to host an ad-supported video site. They want to be an alternative to YouTube, not an exact equivalent. If you need money to produce or host videos, their current suggestion is to ask for it: https://joinpeertube.org/faq#what-is-peertube-s-remuneration...