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?

  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    17 hours ago

    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.

    • Die4Ever@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      24 minutes ago

      they seem to only give accounts to creators

      Yea this is a bit silly. It seems like they manually approve user accounts because they need to be careful with the uploads using up their storage. But a way better solution would be to approve users more liberally, and user accounts would be created without a channel so they cannot upload anything, and creating channels needs to be approved. That way people can freely make user accounts for browsing/following, and the admins can still restrict spam channels from being created and uploading videos.

      • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        18 minutes ago

        Exactly. The way it is structured seems to forget people who watch the videos are an important part of the community.

        • Die4Ever@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          13 minutes ago

          yes Youtube has maybe a billion user accounts with 0 videos, it’s the main way to use the platform

    • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comEnglish
      1·
      11 hours ago

      Important: you do not need to have an account on a peertube instance. You can follow from nearly (iirc) any fedi instance. I have successfully done so from mastodon and I have heard lemmy should work, not sure though. You just copy the address of the channel you want to follow from the browser and paste it in your search bar on mastodon.

          • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            41·
            17 minutes ago

            How about basic usability considerations? Nobody is going to switch if this is the user experience. And if no users are subscribing and interacting why would content creators spend time posting to it?

            If people want it to be a thriving community then it needs functionality that makes it a community. I shouldn’t have to creat an account on a server I don’t want content from in hopes that I’ll be able to subscribe and interact with a server I do want content from.

            I’m an established fediverse user, I have been rolling my own Linux servers for decades. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with imperfect systems. This is a shit user experience and if nobody says so it will never be fixed and peertube will wither and die.

            • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              25 minutes ago

              It would be nice if we can just click subscribe. I know mastodon lets you do something similar within other mastodon instances. What I wouldn’t give for a better user experience…

              • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                15 minutes ago

                Yeah it’s compounded by federation being opt in on PeerTube. It makes the server your account is on matter a lot more.

            • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comEnglish
              21·
              6 hours ago

              Although I do understand the idea. but you really need to check your ego, mate.

              Just offer help or suggest different ways than it is currently done. If you have the faintest idea of hosting and/or programming, this is not how to get your way.

              So stop bitching and start working or shut the fuck up.

              • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                11·
                5 hours ago

                😆

                That’ll show the big corporations how it’s done. I’m sure they’re shaking in their boots at a platform that demands their users are programers or live with how crappy it is.

                • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comEnglish
                  1·
                  5 hours ago

                  You‘re avoiding my point because you know I‘m right. We dont want corpo apologists here. Foss software is dependent on cooperation. Cooperate or leave.

                  In any case, you’re leaving my feed now.

                  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    1·
                    4 hours ago

                    I’m an apologist because I’m capable of criticism. You’re no different than Trump and Musk.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      Which instance was that? Have a look at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115

      Even if the instance does not federate with the instance you wanted, you can still type in the link of the channel in the other instance’s search bar.