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Peertube's moment might come soon (feddit.de)

submitted 8 months ago by sexy_peach@feddit.de to c/technology@beehaw.org

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5294605

Youtube, for so many years, was just too good. Yes, they changed the 5 star rating system to likes and dislikes and a few years later disabled dislikes altogether, but their algorithm mostly digs up interesting content and it just works for creators and viewers.

This might change soon. Their new strategy to disallow ad-blockers will frustrate a certain kind of viewer. Those who dislike surveillance and like open-source tech, those who use uBlock Origin and know why.

Just like a few years ago mastodon suddenly reached a certain kind of popularity, because twitter had their first big fuckup, maybe Peertube is next. It certainly is the most polished decentralized solution that doesn't use a blockchain. Creators or fans could easily host their own videos, fans can watch it, without ads.

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[-] villasv@beehaw.org 11 points 8 months ago

I’m placing my bets on piped video instead, for now at least. YouTube needs something more tragic, like getting acquired by Elon Musk, before it bleeds for real.

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Afaik piped is not an alternative to YouTube just a different client for it.

If everyone suddenly moved to piped one day both YouTube and piped would probably suffer

[-] villasv@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago

Yes, it's a client. Well, for better or for worse, no chance that this huge of a user base will move to piped. I don't understand why it's not super famous yet, but I guess invidious and piped are simply fringe tech still.

That's why I said that YouTube would need a major tragedy to get a real hit, real alternatives like Peertube are going to struggle a lot against the network effect. Nebula has a much better shot given the amount of content creators invested on it, and it's still a long shot.

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Might be an unpopular opinion but I think piped is far worse of an experience than the default site/app

Doesn't work half the time, can't do 4k for some reason , audio is a bit scuffed and no recommendations

Don't get me wrong I really want to like it but it has a while to go before it can get mainstream appeal

If YouTube has a major tragedy and people migrate to piped YouTube will find a way to block piped, it's their database at the end of the day

[-] villasv@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Not unpopular with me at all, my wife also prefers regular YouTube because the video quality tends to be better. YouTube just handles variable connection speeds better, and the buffering and quality switching is very smart. I mostly agree, the watching experience is superior.

But YouTube ads are among the highest annoyances of my daily life right now, they simply could not be less relevant for me. Because I'm in NA it's adamant that I buy an EV or an SUV, a bunch of fast food ads, it's just too much. I'm willing to spend 20 seconds waiting for Piped to buffer instead of 8 seconds of YouTube ads.

And I'm not really hoping Piped will ever go mainstream, because as you said, if that happens they're toast. Piped and Invidious have to stay niche to keep flying under the radar - well not really under the radar, YouTube already sent a Cease and Desist to Invidious, but I guess for now they're not invested in enforcing it yet.