In the video streaming world, yeah that is true. These platforms are not just hosts, they are discovery platforms and if there isn't any content to discover, it isn't a good platform.
Peertube discovery is based on a "following" model based on the ActivityPub protocol. You don't need a Peertube account to follow video creators, because:
- you can subscribe to them from Mastodon or any fediverse client
- your friends on the Fediverse can "reshare" (reshare/boost) videos from their favorite content creator
There's also a "decentralized" (as in "selfhosted") search engine called SepiaSearch being developed for use with Peertube.
I can't say i'm fulfilled yet by the content available on Peertube (although there is some great quality content), but at least i'm happy i'm not being dragged into recommendation hell by a hostile machine learning model trying to maximize advertising revenues... and Peertube federation keeps growing with more and more non-profits running instances for specific interests and communities, and more and more content creators ditching the creator-hostile [0] platforms for Peertube.
[0] Some creators believe that tracking their viewers and serving them dubious advertisement is bad. Most creators agree that automated copyright strikes like Youtube is doing (completely ignoring copyright exemptions like fair use) is bad.