There are 100M+ channels uploading on YouTube regularly and only 2-3M of them are monetized. Not everyone wants to upload videos on the internet with the explicit goal of making money. Professional creators are a very tiny minority, and a platform like YouTube will always be better suited for them (your "small" channel with 100K subscribers is actually in the top 0.5-0.1% of YouTube). There is no reason for Peertube to go after this specific demographic.
Yet those 2-3M channels get the lions share of the views. It is a two-sided system. And if you want to attract viewers, you need what they want to watch. Looking on the front page of peertube the most viewed video I see has 29 views. If I sort by hot, the "hottest" video has 692 in a month. If the intent is to publish videos to have people watch it, PeerTube is clearly not the place to do that.
What does that even mean? Not everything published has to be with the purpose of entertaining. This is a more recent mindset that came with the advent of the "Content Creator" (think Mr.Beast). But it needs not be this engineered. Historically, some of the more interesting channels on YouTube have been people organically sharing something that was genuinely dear to them. Offered with little concern as to whether it's "what people want to watch". They make you want to watch it, because it's a passion that they manage to convey. By contrast, people who are particularly concerned about eyeballs seem to publish with the purpose of meeting the audience's interest as a main guiding factor. And yes, maybe for those, YouTube is a better fit. But I also know many for whom moving to a reliable alternative (tech wise) would be a step up.
If for instance your goal is to share educational content for free, provided that the hosting platform is sound, your main concern as far as your audience finding your content should be that of discoverability. Which is an easy enough kink to iron with current search technology.
> Not everything published has to be with the purpose of entertaining.
1. Why do you assume that people would “want to watch” something only for entertainment reasons, instead of for educational reasons, etc. GP commenter did not seem to even imply any focus on entertainment like your assumption that entertainment is the only reason someone could ‘want to watch’ something.
2. As far as what GP commenter meant by want to watch, they provided some specifics in their post - the most watched video on the home page had 29 views, so that presumably is the sun of people who wanted to watch it (whether for educational, etc reasons), accidentally viewed it, were required to view it as part of an educational program, etc.
The word "entertain" quickly came to mind in that sentence because attracting the audience as a primary concern is typical of the entertainment industry, regardless of the content being educational, news, or otherwise. If we get stuck on that choice of a word, it's admittedly a bit narrow for the point I was making, but I think the rest of my post successfully got things across.
> Yet those 2-3M channels get the lions share of the views.
...because they're directly tied to YouTube own revenue.
As someone who creates a fair bit of content, and am fortunate enough not to have to worry about the revenue from that, I deliberately try to minimize monetization because it ultimately becomes the main driving force behind your content creation.
Monetization as the only model for content creation leads to an incredibly safe and boring world while simultaneously meaning every piece of content you interact with is trying to extract money from you the viewer.
No, it is because that is the content that people want to watch. I too create content that has been widely watched and don't include video ads or any of the other monetization features they push. But I create videos because I want people to watch them. I don't do it for the sake of myself and pushing it out into the void. I don't follow whatever the trends are, I create what I believe will be the most useful as I make educational content. And it works. But I post to YouTube because that is where people will find it.
If I were to self-host my videos or put it on PeerTube if I wanted anyone to see it I would actively have to go out and promote it myself. YouTube does that for me.
I'm confused, why are you arguing about this? Stick with YouTube. This isn't for you.
It's even in the name. PeerTube. Peer. Your talking about 'consumers' of a product you produce vs a way to share videos that isn't YouTube with your .. PEERs.
Not 100k views videos. Think you should step back and think what your actually trying to debate or argue. It comes off kinda like your misunderstanding the software and conflating a lot of things that don't relate and not relevant to PeerTube.
>No, it is because that is the content that people want to watch.
No, that's not a given. It would be more accurate to say it is content people will watch, and not necessarily want to watch. I mean people will watch porn, I'm not sure they want to watch porn.
If you asked someone before vine or tiktok whether you wanted to watch an unending carousel of thirty second videos from nobodies for four hours straight I'm not sure a lot of people would say yes.
Am I the only one who sees ragebait titles to youtube videos that do not contain a modicrum of the rage that is advertised in the title?
I don't think we need to conflate algorithmic nudging with the conscience preference of the user frankly.
Then there's even less reason to host outside of YouTube, why would I want to host a server that costs money if I'm not making any money from the videos? It works for those who want to own their content and verify its safety, or for ideological reasons such as supporting OSS but I'm not sure why the average user would care about PeerTube.
The problem is that big creators have many subscribers, because they're the only ones making videos people want to watch.
If a channel has 100 subscribers - (except if it's a brand new channel) - it's because people saw the videos and decided, no, I don't want to see this, I'm not going to subscribe.
Put all of those people on a platform together, you will just end up with a platform with more creators than viewers.
So? Why is that a problem? My wife occasionally watches this old lady who's vlogged every day for over 14 years straight. She averages 150-200 views. The people who try to build a brand end up getting outsized attention so it seems like that must be what anyone would want, but most people actually aren't trying to do that.
It's not an either-or, but generally speaking, a platform centered around getting more people to watch is probably worse to have in the world than one centered around people just expressing themselves to a handful of e.g. family/friends/small communities. Especially if the former is really just a conduit for ads.
