this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
517 points (100.0% liked)
Fediverse
33113 readers
294 users here now
A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to [email protected]!
Rules
- Posts must be on topic.
- Be respectful of others.
- Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
- Follow the general Lemmy.world rules.
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ehhh, I feel it's not just that.
Yeah, people don't think centralized media is an issue, and thus don't join Fediverse, causing it to be a little dead and discourages others from using it as an alternative.
However, YT is a job for the thousands that create content on there, and reasonably so, they need money to make said content and pay bills. Which means ads, cause be real, most people (including me) don't wanna join a Patreon to see their content. I just can't think of many creators who I love enough to drop consistent money on them, never mind several at once.
Lemmy doesn't need to be monetized to entice people, because Reddit wasn't built on that (karmawhoring gets you no money). Even pixelfed could make it as an alternative, because creators aren't paid by ads or Insta themselves, they get money from sponsorships and promoting their shops.
But YT? It's built to make money from putting in ads. So unless creators lived off of sponsors alone and the few who subscribe to Patreon, they're shit outta luck if they join Peertube.
EDIT: Completely forgot the server side of it, but was reminded of that fact by this comment on the Degoogle community about YT:
YT became popular before monatization existed. It was a hobby and a form of socialization for many people. I'd rather see Peertube be that than what YT has become. Monatization is what ruined it, imo.
I get what you mean about the monetization ruining the hobby, but also realize that there would be a significant lack of creators (and therefore content) if they couldn't make money from their channels. People were doing it for fun back then and they could afford to since they didn't have to worry about high quality, well produced videos. Even today, plenty of people join YT to make content without the idea of trying to make it rich or make a job out of it.
I watch mostly gaming content online, and I feel that a lot of these YouTubers wouldn't make content if they weren't getting paid, especially for those who are livestreamers and VTubers who's whole life depends on subs and spending money on them.
I think it's justified that these creators want to be paid for their work, as these quality videos take teams of people and hours of editing and love put into them. You can still love your hobby and also want to get paid for the mass amount of effort it takes to do so.
So the shitposts, fan clips, video essays, art memes, gossip channels, etc. would still exist, yes, but some of the longer content that needs higher production would just tank. Stuff like gameplays, cooking videos, makeup tutorials, etc., at least in my mind.
I want Peertube to succeed without needing ads, but I just find that extremely hard and unrealistic to do. Maybe if online culture shifted entirely from ads to sponsorships instead, creators would go to Peertube, but that would require us to actually use these codes and pay money to said sponsors for them to make money. Plus, sponsorships are the new ads, which is why I use sponsorblock, defeating the purpose.
There may have been a relative increase in the numbers of creators on YT after monetization was introduced, but it wasn't on a scale that one person could perceive. Even before monetization, there was more content, of every type and subject, than one person could possibly ever watch. Videos starting to look slick and professional was the most visible result, but I don't feel that this corresponded to an increase in quality. Professional Youtubers post constantly, even when they have nothing to say, to stay visible. Because Peertube's space and bandwidth are paid for by server owners, who are mostly average individuals, I think it would be bad for them to attract that type of creator.