So, given AI is destroying YT, if you’re any sort of a creator at all, even if you just have some random posts from years ago that you uploaded with no intention of getting popular, you really should move your stuff to PeerTube, ideally on a self-hosted instance if you have the hardware to spare, while you still can, because things are only going to get worse for YT.
Even Odysee is a decent alternative if you want more traction, but PeerTube is more ideal as an alternative platform due to having the ability to self-host an instance there and have complete control of your content and presence down to owning the infrastructure you’re posting on.


This post is peak Lemmy. Someone who made a video years ago and posted it to YouTube isn’t going to randomly start self hosting that video on some platform nobody they know in person has ever heard about. I doubt even professional content creators have that amount of time and energy.
I get that this is a fairly tech savvy crowd, but seriously?
Also, it’s overtly stupid advice to “move” anywhere. You can re-upload the same thing in multiple places if you want to, there isn’t only one copy, lol.
Bottom line is, creators will stay/go where the audience is. There is no place that is even close to 1% of the size of YouTube, for that type of content.
The most frustrating this is that I wasn’t going to, but now I might, just out of spite.
Don’t have to self-host, there are plenty of public instances one could sign up for, I picked peertube.wtf, but you have MakerTube if you’re an art or craft-focused creator, for example, or even CuddlyTube among other public instances.
Self-hosting is ideal if you have the spare hardware, but you can still post to public instances if you don’t.
Posting where there is actually an audience is most ideal.
Obviously thats true to a extent but its not like content never drives an audience. If audiences never moved we’d all still be on MySpace and Digg.
Facebook targeted an exclusive desirable user base before opening to everyone. Facebook also made key content decisions to bring in users while Myspace languished.
Reddit staff posted a lot of content to make their site seem more alive. Even then, it took a poorly received Digg update to get people to move.
You just spelled out the solution. Youtube is already making decisions people dont like; so if creators were to create content exclusive to an up and coming platform, then some of [thr audience] would switch and it would cascade over time. There is no instantaneous solution to these things. Just little decisions that lead us where we want to go.
we already have systems like patreon and buymeacoffee to self regulate monetization
Exclusive content is generally only issued behind a pay wall, which doesn’t seem to be the intent of PeerTube.
Assuming that audience isn’t bots ala Twitter or Facebook, or what the audience on YT will probably eventually turn into.