Is PeerTube dead or is discoverability bad?
Is PeerTube dead or is discoverability bad?
I saw a few videos shared on PeerTube recently, and created an account on an instance. However, unlike Mastodon and Lemmy I'm struggling to discover channels to subscribe to. When I use the search functions on my instance, most results are either interesting channels which haven't been updated in years, or random foreign language TV shows and episodes.
Just for example, if I'm trying to find videos on "Gaming" on one of the largest instances, the most recent video is over 1 year ago: https://tilvids.com/search?categoryOneOf=7
Is discoverability on PeerTube bad, or are there barely any active channels?
Edit: BTW one very active creator on PeerTube is https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos and his videos are excellent. But can there really only be a handful of active creators to follow on the whole platform?
It's both horrible discovery and a limited number of creators.
But, for discoverability, https://sepiasearch.org/ might help you find things to watch, since it's the only good multi-server search I've seen. (And run by the peertube devs.)
The discoverability is incredibly bad. Peertube has a ton of videos and more servers than lemmy by a long shot iirc. The problem is that the „frontend“ has seen no love like ever. There recently came an app which is nice but otherwise, its very underloved.
Feel free to voice your concerns in !peertube@lemmy.ml for example. The devs should be available through the fedi somewhere.
I have a Peertube server, and I've requested to follow tilvids, and they denied my request, and they also do not follow my Peertube server. I think one issue with tilvids may be that they essentially choose not to federate, and therefore you won't find much because of this.
I just searched for "Gaming" on my Peertube server and I seem to get a non-ending list of servers. Unfortunately, one column wide, but a lot. When I search for King's Quest, I am also getting a seemingly unending stream of videos.
I follow every Peertube server I can that is clearly not fascist, primarily NSFW, NSFL, etc.
Maybe you just need to find a server that is more federated with other Peertube servers.
I would not recommend using tilvids.com. They do not federate with anyone and do not have global search enabled, which means search only shows videos from tilvids.com. It is however, possible to follow channels from tilvids.com from other platforms (instances).
Simply copy the link from tilvids.com and paste it into the search bar of an instance that has global search enabled.
Platforms can also follow channels directly from tilvids and the videos will show up on said platform.
Discoverability can be a bit finicky on PeerTube. Especially if you don't know how to fine tune the filters.
If you take a look at this list: https://peertube.wtf/home and this one https://lemmy.wtf/post/15810205, you'll see that there's plenty of content creators to follow. I discover new ones almost every day.
There really isn't any other big content creators on PeerTube, other than The Linux Experiment, but if you wanna see your favorite creator on PeerTube, ask them.
If you are looking for a platform (instance) to register on, I recommend looking at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115
In that case issue is some instances do not allow global search and that's why search will limit to only channels you follow and your instance.
I created !peertube@lemmy.world in case anyone finds channels, videos, ect that they like.
We can help with the discovery!
that's the chicken and egg problem of any social network: people don't want to go to a social network with only a few number of content creators and content creators don't want to spend their time managing another platform for only a few number of viewer... social networks needs people to be alive and so if you are interested in Peertube, it will be hard at first but use it so, just like voting system where every vote count, the platform will have one more user and if other people do the same, the platform will grow and if it grow enough it will start to attract bigger content creator, etc...
It's in people hand to break the cycle and makes that Youtube alternative a viable alternative.
I'm a peertube instance admin for years now and closed my google/youtube account 10 years ago, so I'm doing my part to break it.
Check out the two pinned posts here: !peertube@lemmy.wtf
Yeah the search is the worst part. As others have said the technology is there, we just need a better search.
The other issue is Lemmy (and perhaps other platforms) has issues with Peertube channels. I can't direct link Peertube for activityhub posts. Lemmy is a no go. !teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me Piefed for example works: https://piefed.social/c/teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me
I host one and don't plan on taking it down anytime soon! If anyone likes dog videos: @teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me
He's a good boy.
I couldn't even get an account on the instance I most wanted because they seem to only give accounts to creators. So now I cannot follow anyone on that instance, or like their videos, or comment. So I have to figure out what other instance I can get an account on and follow from there, hoping they federated with each other.