Many are asking me to put my videos on PeerTube, but every time I look at it, I see an overly technical user experience that I do not trust to take off.
What we need is for Mastodon to become a video platform, so THIS social medium which has now matured and people clearly love, gets robust video features.
You do not beat YouTube by making users jump through hoops to watch a video. You beat YouTube by making user sponsored creator videos turn up right in the Mastodon feed.
Not sure I follow though. Where are the hoops?
@maridonkers But that's the whole point. If I join a knitting instance for subscribing to knitting videos, I wouldn't want Call of Duty live streams popping up. There is a federated search as well, and also curated content (and instance can subscribe to other instances and channels for its own users)
But yeah, the PT UX could be improved
Well, ok, I get your point - but how to improve this?
Some video sites (universities etc) would surely not want the default search selection to be fediverse-wide.
@troed
1. I cannot watch your video inside the Mastodon client app I am using. Instead I am forced into another platform with a different UI.
2. I cannot comment on your video without going through an additional authentication process on a different platform.
3. The comments are not visible under your post here on Mastodon.
4. I cannot become a financial supporter of your content.
5. I cannot see suggested content from other Mastodon users at the end of your video.
etc.
I think it boils down to you already having a Google account, which means that if you watch a video on Xitter you're already - in addition to X - authenticated on Youtube.
The same isn't done in the Fediverse. Your Mastodon account isn't automatically also a PeerTube account [on the instance with the video being hosted]. I mean, my account on my Mastodon instance isn't an authentication to mastodon.social either.
This will only be solved if Mastodon servers also act as distributed authentication servers that other Fediverse servers accept. I agree we probably should move in that direction, but the hurdles will be ... immense.
@troed that would be a really good start.
Imagine if 50,000 creators sponsored the servers to carry the video content, and it was just seamlessly available on Mastodon, and users could then support the creators financially directly from inside Mastodon.
This is what creators on X get, and if Mastodon offered something similar, I would go that route immediately.
@randahl @troed @anderspuck @Gargron Issue 1+2 are maybe a problem of your app. Try the webinterface or different app. On top of that: Peertube instances can shut comments off or require additional auth. Or can block entire instances. Thats a good thing (very good!).
Issue 3: Well: yes of course they are visible. Proof: https://social.tchncs.de/@[email protected]antastischepause.de/116346005328700120
Issue 4: Of course, but that depends on the creator. And tax regulations and more.
Issue 5: No and thats is very good. Who needs paternalism? I know for myself what I want to see. Suggestions always mean that someone is evaluating your behavior. And save it for later use - against you and for ad revenue.
@artfors thank you.
I see she has a Patreon account which she links to. I thought you meant that the video platform itself had support functions.
Hopefully that will become reality one day.
@Gargron @randahl @anderspuck First of all - being on #PeerTube does not mean you need to leave #Mastodon - you can both follow and interact with videos directly from #Fediverse instance
You can also #boost them (just put the PeerTube URL in the search bar)
You can also follow PeerTube channel into #Podcast applications through #RSS and such.
Yes, UX has some round edges, but if you manage to try, it's quite powerfull tool.
And no, you will not achieve same result with Mastodon. Ever.
Also - it's time to stop talking PeerTube like it was supposed to replace YouTube - it will not. It's an alternative and it's quite bang for the buck actually.
@Gargron @randahl @anderspuck There are also complains about "there is nobody on PeerTube" .. well, this is our most successfull video. On local instance in Czech language (!).
As for #monetization - support button will not work in this use case - I'd choose some sort of mini QR code within the video to make it reach whole audience - even out of PeerTube...
@randahl @anderspuck @Gargron
But flodding Mastodon with videos will make it extremely more expensive to run small Mastodon instances.
No, I prefer videos to stay on PeerTube, its just as easy to follow Peer Tube channels on Mastodon as any other fediverse account.
Setting up a Peer Tube channel is done in minutes.
@Vidrir The videos could be hosted seperately behind the scenes.
I would pay good money to have my Mastodon account “video creator enabled”, if this enables me to share my videos to the audience I love.
But asking people to download yet another app and create yet another account and follow me on yet another platform is just not a viable way forward.
Yes, you can watch PeerTube from a hyperlink, but that is not a full YouTube experience with creator support, debate, etc.
@anderspuck @Gargron
@randahl @Vidrir @anderspuck @Gargron
People are telling you that you can follow Peertube accounts from your Mastodon account. Only the creator needs both apps (and only if he also wants a Mastodon account). And while I personally don't have a Peertube account, I do have a Pixelfed (Fedi "instagram") account, and ⅘ of my followers are Mastodon accounts. I've had comment threads that were a mix of Pixelfed and Madtodon accounts.
The integration exists. It is not perfect, but it does work.
Which is very much the opposite of what you are comparing to, you can't follow or comment on Youtube channels in the Twitter app.
@randahl
Then the Youtube users can't follow or comment.
The big platforms have exactly the problems you describe - needing an account on every platform. Which is one of the things the fediverse was designed to do away with.
@Gargron @randahl @Vidrir @anderspuck Keyword is #boost.
Boost your #PeerTube video to #Mastodon and you get exactly what you're talking about in this comment.
Only thing, that's required is your account on PeerTube. Not sure if Mastodon can handle this, but I can automatically boost all my videos from my PeerTube account using #Friendica mirroring ability.
@randahl @Vidrir @anderspuck @Gargron
Thats my opinion as very small content creator who is peertube exclusive:
You're comparing one of the world's biggest companies to a small foundation that relies on donations (and has one fulltime developer, i think? I´m not sure.)
Apart from a browser, no one needs an additional app to use Peertube. Youtube is an website, too.
A Fediverse account, however, is really helpful. So you can like, boost and comment peertube videos.
And yes, peertube means video hosting and lacks many community features and other things. but the software is growing and it is opensource. If you need something: Everyone can contribute in different ways or donate some money.
@ErikDerBezwinger @randahl @anderspuck @Gargron
Agree, better to support the development of what has the potential of becoming a really good federated video sharing service than making Mastodon a giant "Jack of all trades".
I have a peertube channel (that nobody watches), I never use the peertube app, the web interface is great on all surfaces, and I use Mastodon to follow my favorite "peertubers" anyway.
I think you are right.
Non-tech users just want a single identity to be able to communicate.
An identity might then have limited abilities - it might not be able to communicate a video. But a payment might fix that.
For the broader audience this must be fixed.
And we need a true standardized #micropayment protocol, supported by browsers and (European) banks.
@benfulton respectfully, I disagree. I am already following @anderspuck, but if I want to watch one of his videos and place a comment underneath it and support him with $5, I currently need three different platforms.
This is not seamless, and all this friction cannot compete with YouTube.
@osma I was shown this UI, and I promise you, that is not just an authentication dialog, that is a wall which sends 9 out of 10 users elsewhere.
Countless times I hear tech-savvy people say they do not understand why the average user can’t just google her way to content on a platform she does not know, and create an account, and find her way through an interface she does not understand.
She can’t. And that is the point.
Friction is a killer.
5.4K Posts, 1.49K Following, 1.58K Followers · Tech and systems, Europe and Ukraine, democracy and defense, energy and science. And whatever else I find interesting, I don't discriminate. Mostly English, occasionally Finnish
And now that you've had an opportunity to think about this:
What you actually want is for fedi clients to understand video and display it inline, so that you're not sent out of the client to look at an unfamiliar interface. Such as, how @phanpy does it.
Figuring out how to comment on a YouTube video if you don't already have a YouTube/Google account isn't much easier - except that Google is pushing much harder to create a 1st party account.
@randahl
RE: https://mastodon.social/@aslakr/116356110630957976
@osma @randahl It might be a bit confusing that the Mastodon web client shows the #Peertube video inline, while some other clients like @ivory don't.
For making Peertube videos known it would help if Peertube supported Mastodon style quoting
@osma @randahl I haven't seen discussion of supporting quote-posts (FEP-044f) on @peertube except from https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/7253
@sab the fact that you had to look up a different @anderspuck account is friction in itself.
@randahl @anderspuck @Gargron YouTube didn’t evolve from Twitter. YouTube started as a video content platform.
Hosting video is a completely different ball game to hosting… text. A toot is going to be a kilobyte or two. A few megabytes if you add images (images are the most expensive part of hosting a Mastodon instance).
A video is hundreds of megabytes, potentially even gigabytes, as I’m sure you’re very well aware while uploading to YT.
YouTube and even the awful X.com are here to stay, and have far too many valuable accounts on them for me to avoid using. YouTube in particular is an incredible archive of lost media - politics or preferences notwithstanding.
So just keep posting on the Tube and feel OK about it.
@Sheep_Overboard
Microsoft is not here to stay. VISA is not here to stay. Booking.com is not here to stay. Neither are X nor YouTube.
At least not if you or some organization or country you're part of becomes sufficiently unpopular with Donald Trump. This has happened already.
For our own safety, we're building alternatives.
@randahl
@anderspuck ⬆️ THIS! EXACTLY THIS! ⬆️
@randahl @anderspuck @AccordingtoWouter @Gargron
I depends on your niche and audience. A lot of YouTube creators do not meet the criteria for monetization.
I think the biggest problem for PeerTube is the myth of making money on YouTube.
My example; Small YT channel, not monetized. After I made the jump to Peertube in January, I actually made enough money by selling seeds to cover the microphone expense. The community is more supportive outside YouTube.
The whole "trying to game the algoritme" part of YouTube is destroying it - It gave us AI slob and clickbait.
After I started to publish to PeerTube, I feel a change in pride and joy in my videoes, hard to explain but I feel more free. Making something for others not for the algoritme.
@benjaminlj If you are right, then I suppose in a few months @anderspuck will have hundreds of thousands of subscribers on PeerTube, like he does on YouTube, just because his content is now available on PeerTube.
Forgive me, but no matter how much I love Anders’ content, I doubt that. Because the UI experience matters.
My average 60-year-old viewer on YouTube has zero incentive for switching to an inferior user experience on an unknown platform with a UI she does not understand. Zero.
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