[jesse_dot_id]

I agree with you, but I was speaking to PeerTube's own claim that it is an alternative to YouTube, rather than the narrow use case you're describing. For the vast majority of the people on the planet, it is not an alternative to YouTube because it's very difficult to discover content. When I go to YouTube, I can find videos immediately. If I want to find videos via PeerTube, it's a journey. It's the same journey that has shifted the majority of Internet users away from forums to aggregators. PeerTube feels like a bygone way to do things.

[ndriscoll]

> An alternative to Big Tech's video platforms

> PeerTube is a tool for sharing online videos developed by Framasoft, a french non-profit.

> PeerTube allows you to create your own video platform, in complete independence.

I think it's pretty clear that it's software for running your own video sharing platform? Sure, people are used to monopolies and consolidation now, but surely you can wrap you head around the idea that some people might want to host their own site? Like why are you here and not on reddit? Is this site a bygone way to do things? Or is it just... its own thing?

As I said above, I think entities tied to governments should be using something like this, not youtube. The obvious place to look for e.g. recorded meetings from your city would be your city website. Likewise with schools. And government functions like that absolutely should not be monetized and should not have ads attached.

[jesse_dot_id]

I am both here, and on Reddit, and also on YouTube. I can be in many places at the same time because this is all made of light and there are lots of interesting places to go. I'll probably find myself on Reels before too long. I'm not on PeerTube because I cannot find content that is interesting on PeerTube, which again is the crux of my argument.

https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube

> PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform developed as an alternative to other platforms that centralize our data and attention, such as YouTube, Dailymotion or Vimeo.

The original PeerTube launch I saw on this platform several years ago very much sold it as a replacement for YouTube. I'm not sure what exactly you think I'm saying or trying to do here, but what I've said has absolutely nothing to do with the use case you're defending. It's a good use case and it makes sense. It's fine for hosting your own stuff or in coursework or something where the videos are directly linked to from a CMS. Some people want to host their own stuff. Some people should host their own stuff.

For everybody else... The UX sucks.

[ndriscoll]

You are not "on peertube" because there's no such thing as a peertube to be on. What I'm trying to convey is that your words literally don't make sense. There is no "everybody else" for the UX to suck for. You're complaining that it doesn't try to be the opposite of what it is.

If you're interested in Debian, you go to Debian's peertube which is part of Debian's website, where the Debian foundation hosts their videos. If you're interested in Blender, you go to Blender's peertube which is part of Blender's website. It's always worked this way. There's also activitypub federation if you want the social parts with a single account so that cooperating instances can interact. Like email, it's an open protocol so any servers can federate. Like email, they can also choose who they accept traffic from.

There is also a search engine that indexes a bunch of instances, but just as Google is not the web, their search engine is not the peertube. "The web" is just the sum total of all of the websites out there. The thing you seem to think has bad UX, the peertube, is just the sum total of all of the peertube instances out there.

There's no giant overlay or mesh network like gnutella or IPFS. There's just people running their own servers, like the web or email.

It's an alternative to youtube for people who just want to share videos in the same way that an email server is an alternative to gmail for people who just want to send emails to each other. Or a web server is an alternative to Facebook for someone who wants a website. It's understood that those monopolies are then distinct and generally incompatible.

[jesse_dot_id]

You're being pedantic while also just kind of continuing to make my point for me because you're describing a regressive user experience over and over again. The Internet at large has evolved beyond forums and IRC for a reason.

Users have become used to having quick and easy access to a lake of content. When I go to PeerTube's website, I should see content first, and if I'm a creator, I want a guarantee that my content isn't going to suddenly disappear. YouTube can make these guarantees. BlueSky is the only such federated alternative that has gained any degree of traction with normal users because they ripped off the UX of Twitter verbatim.

If you're on episcodon.net and you want your friends and colleagues to join you there, what does that look like? Your answer invariably resides at the end of a labyrinth of shit UX, including the legwork you have to do first to know wtf episcodon.net even is.

People use GMail because it makes email easy to use and there is an implicit guarantee that the emails they have access to today will be there in 10 years because there are an army of engineers being paid to maintain the service. The UX is good and that's why it's popular.

To advertise yourself as an alternative to a popular social media platform, you must address why those platforms are popular in the first place or you are not competitive as a default state.

[ndriscoll]

> Users have become used to having quick and easy access to a lake of content. When I go to PeerTube's website, I should see content first,

Peertube's website is not for consumers. It is for publishers. They're quite clear about that when they advertise that you can run your own platform. Again, you are basically complaining that nginx.org doesn't list some cool websites to get started browsing the WWW (except peertube even goes so far as to actually even point to a couple instances).

It's not a regression if your goal is not "create content"/"find and consume content". Like if you actually have interests, and e.g. are a Blender user, and you already visit blender.org for news about the Blender project, then it makes sense that they might say "here are some videos about our project". And of course they offer RSS so you can use your preferred subscription software.

> if I'm a creator, I want a guarantee that my content isn't going to suddenly disappear.

Then install peertube and post your videos? This is what various organizations that don't want their information to disappear like Debian or Blender have done.

> shit UX, including the legwork you have to do first to know wtf episcodon.net even is.

So your criticism is that it's not literally the current monopoly that everyone already knows.

What do you even mean "join you there"? Sharing a peertube video is the same as sharing a youtube video: you select the address, copy, and paste into a message. There's no commitment. You either just... click a link and watch a video, or if you also want to post, you put in your email/password to sign up. I have hundreds of saved logins in my browser, including Google/youtube (who are more onerous and require e.g. a phone number to sign up, or back in the day, required an invite). Peertube is somehow uniquely shit for... not literally being Google?

Is there an actual criticism here that isn't "videos aren't literally recommended on youtube and I'm not literally already logged in via youtube and subscriptions aren't literally managed within youtube"?

[jesse_dot_id]

Have a good weekend