Why didn't I hear about this earlier? Strange.
All the software from FramaSoft is built from the point of view that "FOSS" is all they need and they can ignore everything else.
This means that the UX for all of their tools is not just subpar compared to alternatives, it is borderline unusable.
Peertube specifically is unusable, has no content and has no incentive for content creators.
Peertube users do not need content nor incentives: they just want to publish their videos and post links to them to their audience.
My photo gallery doesn't need content nor incentives for content creators either... I supply the content and my content creator incentive is showing my vacation pictures to my friends !
Framasoft is originally a non-commercial association of French academics. They have no desire to replace youtube for music videos, unboxing and Minecraft lives.
And about 99% of people who upload to Youtube are not concerned with any kind of incentive other than "Let me share this video". For 99% of people, it is a perfectly capable Youtube replacement (well, beyond being able to search well - a problem the whole Fediverse has...)
I still don't understand the Fediverse's surprisingly common hostility to indexing: a publishing platform that won't let indexers record its publications - what is that supposed to be ?
A bunch of reactionaries seems to believe that search is a privacy violation... On a publishing platform - hilarious !
Anyway, I've stopped trying and my current global village microblogging forum is Bluesky.
For example: the Intergalactic Wasabi Mixes, findable here, are real gems I've been trawling over for weeks now:
https://toobnix.org/c/snowdusk_channel/videos?s=1
You say it is "unusable" - can you describe to me what happens when you (or anyone else) clicks on one of those videos? Do they not work for you?
I was very clear that the UX is so bad it's unusable.
But if you want something actually unusable, no problem.
1. Open their "Browse content" page: https://joinpeertube.org/browse-content
2. Search the first example: "music"
3. Click the first video that shows up: https://peertube.dsmouse.net/w/bc181d28-3284-4882-b7a3-314e2...
4. "Failed to play video. The video failed to play due to technical issues.", with a month old comment saying the same.
It didn't play for me either. I clicked on the first video in the suggestions, it worked immediately. Does that video not work for you? On the link to toobnix I shared, with the Intergalactic Mixes, do they not work for you? They all work on my side.
Anyway, "unusable" doesn't mean "there's one video I found that doesn't work", it means, "impossible to use", or "cannot be used". It's a boringly obvious point but this is - false.
I've been using it since its release and it has been usable since then. It certainly has content, i.e. the content I put on it. I run three sites for different purposes, all from the same server which also hosts dozens of other services. The incentive for the 'content' (a disgusting concept if I can be so bold, as if its role is comparable to that of ballast on a ship instead of being the reason the ship sets sail in the first place) creator - which is me for the first site, others for the other two - is that I get to distribute video and audio without getting censored, without advertisements, without data leeches trying to profile viewers while still being able to reach across the world from that server-under-the-stairs.