Is it just me, or does PeerTube seem like it’s missing a general-purpose, beginner-friendly instance — similar to how Mastodon has Mastodon.Social, and Lemmy has Lemmy.World?
What I’m thinking of is omething like PeerTube.Video (or a similarly neutral and approachable name).
It could be geared toward:
New users who aren’t sure which instance to pick
Ideal for general folks migrating from YouTube who just want to upload and watch videos without needing to understand federation or instance quirks right away
Older or less tech-savvy users who find federation a bit overwhelming
General-purpose content creators and viewers
etc.
Yes, instances like PeerTube.wtf exist and are well-federated — but, IMO, no offence meant, I feel the name might not be the most inviting choice for a “mainstream” or flagship instance.
It feels similar to if sh.itjust.works had become the go-to Lemmy instance instead of Lemmy.World.
This wouldn’t mean centralizing PeerTube — it would still be volunteer-run like the other flagship instances on the Fediverse.
But it could act as a soft landing pad, for general users who are used to centralized social media: a welcoming, YouTube-like entry point that’s still fully federated.
What do you think?
Would this help adoption and accessibility, or is it better for PeerTube to stay entirely decentralized without a “main” instance?
I tried posting a Peertube.wtf link in a forum and it wouldn’t let me. No matter what I tried (BBcode, plain URL, code block), the 3-letter string “wtf” was always replaced with “confused”.
Have you ever considered letting @meldrik@lemmy.wtf know about it?
They run .wtf
Just to make sure that it wasn’t a potential issue on wtf’s end?
It’s definitely a forum filter, as the substitution occurs even in the posting preview window, and also when using those three letters not in that or any other URL.
The only issue is server resources. Who is going to pay to host a free service for video? Lemmy has moderate requirements, however if each post was a video the requirements would be many times greater.
I’m fairly sure Peertube is a bit more distributed due to the storage requirements that come with video. And while we can all chip in a few hundred Gigabytes and add lots of smaller instances, it’d be hard for an entity to finance something like a default instance. I’d expect it to be a few hundred bucks per month and 10,000 users. So that becomes less of a hobby and a proper job. And it needs to be paid or someone needs to make sure a lot of donations come in and manage all of that more like a business.
This wouldn’t mean centralizing PeerTube
Yes, it would. It always does.
Yes, PT would genuinely attract more interest with a couple of big instances: just like here on Lemmy, it has proven to be a great push for growing as a platform.
I like peertube.wtf name, every instance starting with peertube in the name is enough attractive IMO, the real problem are other aspects like funds and reliability.
So like https://fedi.video/? It gives a curated taste of best of federated video, only downsides are no public accounts.
https://tubefree.org/ allows open registration but doesn’t have as curated (mainstream newbie friendly) of a feed, and also doesn’t allow uploads.
If you are a content creator you really should join a topical instance or selfhost.
Tubefree.org that’s me! Open registration, yup. But as we’re a moderated instance, and only funded by me atm, yes uploads are limited. I’ve allowed folks to upload on a person by person basis. Someone wamted to upload copyrighted material, I can’t take that risk.
I’m more than happy to host all kinds of things though. Folks just need to ask. :-)
That being said, yes it’d be great if an instance like peertube.wtf would exist with a mainstream friendly domain. My understanding is peertube.wtf is self funded by its owner (with some help from donations) but that’s hard to find a patreon like that.
@meldrik@lemmy.wtf
