megrania

(sorry for the late reply)

https://see.ellipsenpark.de/ --> again, single-user, single-topic, more of an archive really

I'm running my own instance, and typically post my stuff on mastodon, so I guess I have made the first step?

It's a bit of a Catch-22 I suppose ... low numbers of viewers makes it less attractive for creators, and fewer interesting creators make it less attractive for viewers.

Taking into account the other aspects that make it less attractive for viewers (fragmentation and inconvenience ... having to dig through "Find the right instance for you" tutorials, no matter how well curated, can be a bit of a turn-off compared to just going to a central point and find what you're looking for), I don't have that much hope that it'll reach a critical mass of both viewers and creators to catapult Peertube into large-scale relevance ... as sad as I am about saying that.

"If you can find it" ... that's the crucial point I suppose ... but without a discovery algorithm, interesting creators, and a VAST content archive, it can hardly be called an "alternative" for YouTube.

When I was looking into it I found the best use case was to use it as a self-hosted video archive to replace/extend my Vimeo. At least at that point, all instances that were remotely interesting were not taking any users, and the generic ones seemed to be very far away from what I'm doing content-wise.

And I guess as long as that's the case, and you have no ways to monetize content nor any significant reach due to the federated fragmentation, I don't think it's an interesting software/federated platform for creators ...

Hope in what sense? Hope that it's generally possible to connect online without corporate social media? Sure ...

Hope that it'll become a replacement social media at a large scale? Probably not ... I think the way push-federation is implemented makes it inconvenient and hard to grasp, and generally people seem to prefer centralized platforms for the sheer convenience of use, which is hard to beat.

So I guess it'll remain stable in it's own little niche ... which isn't bad I suppose ...

I guess whether it's a flaw or not depends on your expectations ... definitely feels like a big drawback to me ...

Hmm in theory I get that, but in practice it's not always easy to grasp.

When Fediverse stuff comes up as an "alternative" it's often depicted as "leave Instagram, join Pixelfed" ... not "join pixelfed.social" or "join pixelfed.de" ... it's often presented as if the instance you choose doesn't matter that much. Which, is now pretty clear to me, is not true at all. It also seems a bit at odds with the idea of decentralization because if you want your content to be seen there's a big incentive to join an already-large instance.

Apart from that, as a practical consequence, it's hard to understand why, when and where you see something ... like, a common point of criticism about corporate social media is that algorithms boost content in often hard-to-understand ways ... but in the Fediverse, it just seems a different kind of intransparency, as long as you don't just stick to your local instance.

Hmm ok ... the servers are both pretty large so I assume they should be well-federated (if that's the right term).

But that flaw kinda means that effectively, information trickles through unpredictably and what you see is quite dependent on which instance you're on ... is that understanding correct?

Haha yes, the car is the German's favorite child, and complaining their favorite pastime.

That being said, I think there's more factors to it. Keep in mind that most German cities were in ruins after WWII, and plenty of buildings have been demolished to make room for cars.

The difference in electoral systems might play a role, where a green party could slowly, but steadily gain influence.

Railway infrastructure was already quite dense before mass motorization.

A lot of money has been spend to get through traffic out of town centers.

There's probably more to it ...

I feel like people mistake YouTube for a video hosting solution.

But that's not the point.

• YouTube a huge archive of content that accumulated over the past 17 years.
• YouTube is a content suggestion machine. Discoverability is a key aspect.
• YouTube sets an incentive by allowing people to monetize their content.
• ...

So, if the only thing you're looking for is a video hosting solution, then, yes, PeerTube might be an alternative. In the same way uploading videos to your own webspace would be, and Vimeo also still exists.

But for all the other stuff, YT is, unfortunately, unmatched, and probably will be for a while ...

Hmm I get your point, but on the other hand, I suppose nowadays many people are just used to look for a niche community ... and finding it. So it's not a huge surprise if the first reaction is disappointment when you don't find anything like it or just an empty community.

Well, but that basically means I'd have to rely on different platforms if I want to post and discuss, say, niche music that'd just be buried immediately in the usual "popular" music communities (that often have a slightly rockist slant).

Even on reddit, the ambient music or IDM communities are fairly small.