Why Most PeerTube Instances Say No to New Users (And Why That’s Totally Fair)
Why Most PeerTube Instances Say No to New Users (And Why That’s Totally Fair)
Hot take: Most PeerTube instances shouldn’t just hand out accounts to anyone—and here’s the reality check. Running a PeerTube server isn’t like YouTube. There’s no trillion-dollar corporation footing the bill. Instead, small community admins juggle:
The major points are:
- Storage costs (video files add up fast!)
- Moderation work (spam, trolls, and legal risks)
- Bandwidth limits
- Abuse handling (because yes, people will test boundaries) Yet, a lot of sign-up requests sound like (at least from what I see on my instance):
"I wanna upload videos." "I’m starting a Roblox channel."
Sorry, but that’s not enough. Admins aren’t obligated to give free hosting to strangers. A good admin looks for people who:
- Fit the community’s vibe (e.g., a coding-focused instance won’t host gaming streams).
- Show effort—like sharing a portfolio or explaining why their content adds value.
Example: If you applied with a sample of your work or a clear plan? Hell yes, I’d consider you. But if your pitch is just "I want free hosting," why should the community foot the bill?
TL;DR: PeerTube isn’t a free-for-all. "I just wanna upload stuff" isn’t a good reason. Bring something to the table.
Not allowing people to get on Peertube is the best way to make them avoid Peertube and stay on Youtube.
I can understand why you wouldn’t want to have to host videos of someone doing stupid things and using storage though, but there has to be a better way.
Yeah the better way is the people who want to upload whatever the fuck they want start their own instance or pay an existing instance for hosting.
The issue here is people want shit that costs money for free be cause they're used to a gigantic corporation that subsidizes a mountain of unending trash with a surveillance capitalist ad platform.
The entitlement here is insane. This is a community tool not a product. It doesn't owe anyone comparable service for a comparable price to YouTube.
This is such ZIRP Redditor brain, people aren't owed free services! Lemmy doesn't owe anyone free speech! PeerTube doesn't owe anyone hosting! Neither do the corporate behemoths, it's just that they don't give a shit about someone's shitty behavior because they're too busy making money selling them ads for SquareSpace and the US Army.
The migration to these tools is because ZIRP is over and the free services are being hollowed out and monetized to a much higher degree. We all lived a charmed treat-based online life between 2009 and 2024 that came from companies scamming the market by leveraging interest rates to give us shit below cost. Now the bill is coming due and the addicts of these platforms hate that their toys are being taken away and they expect other tools to feed their addictions.
What's worse is that it's actually cheaper than ever to get symmetric fiber internet in many regions of the country and truly do self-hosting, compared to being stuck on oversubscribed cable, DSL, and dialup. You used to have to pay $1,000 a month for a T1 to do that. Now you can pay $100 for 1 gig symmetric fiber.
There are solutions everywhere for this, people simply don't want to do the work and pay for them because what they want is to be addled by an ad based ZIRP model that was always going to implode.
What instances can I join and pay to upload my videos?
Wouldn't it be rad if every library hosted their towns peertube instance?
The people's videos and streams.
Well then I think it should just be indicated that you have to pay to join some instances.
It should be clear what the conditions to enter are.
I really don’t mind paying for stuff and I’m happy to support PeerTube and some of its creators.
I've been running a Peertube instance for, I think, at least 2 years now? My registrations are open. I have some large initial limitations on upload sizes too and will adjust them up even higher as I see that videos being posted aren't violating the rules.
Why do I keep registration open in mine?
I suppose it comes down to why the site was created. My reason was simply to provide an alternative to YouTube, on principal, and as an advocate against corporate control and ownership over people and their videos. Given this, at least for my site, "I just wanna upload stuff" IS a valid reason to open an account on my site.
You can still have open registrations, but not allow uploads. Most people don't have stuff to upload, but just need an instance with the most reach and a place to keep track of content.
I have a peertube server. People who want to use the infrastructure are obligated to help foot the bill. Pretty easy.
What do you host there that people couldn’t find on YouTube etc ?
I personally or generally on peertube?
In case you ask why one should "use" my infrastructure: i'm talking about uploading, not watching. Everyone can watch on my peertube server and it federates to a lot of other instaces.
Hosting on my peertube server means high uptime, no corpos, pragmatic but strong moderation, extreme bias towards democracy and against fascism.
Ooh question though. Can a peertube admin limit a new account to non-posting activities, i.e. subscribing, liking, commenting, etc? Even in that case, I feel like vetting/limiting sign-ups is super important, but you could be slightly more lax for accounts that aren't interested in posting anything, right?
You could simply put the storage quota at 0 and the user wont be able to upload anything. Then the admin can give a quota to the user later.
So there is option to allow upload but videos needs to be manually aproved.
You can get pretty granular on the permissions of users. I host one myself and it's a family server.