Then it's just a matter of letting people add their own videos directly to the service and it can become fully independent of YouTube.
There are a minority of users who care about being able to host videos that violate YouTube/TikTok/Instagram policies. Unfortunately, a significant part of that minority is working with infringing or illegal content, which both prevents ad networks from working with you and attracts attention from law enforcement.
When i was 20, i was reflexively cynical, because it let me pose as intellectual without the burden of having to learn or think. As an adult, i find that pose very fucking obvious.
My interest was piqued by the concept of natting ip6, and why an isp might do so, and why cgnat might be disabled if you ask the isp to disable ip6.
...bb-but I thought cynicism was the same thing as experience![1]
No but seriously, I agree it is primarily "we can't be arsed to change our methods".
"Primarily" is not everything; the other 10-20% is the long tail of everything else. Europe is getting much harder on filesharing[3][4] because of business interests, and - despite the much better regulation - there's probably some "you shouldn't be hosting things on a residential connection anyways, pay us for a business connection peasants" like in the US[2].
Of course, all these ready-made restrictions are then easily adaptable for abuse (when's the next Chat Control proposal anyways?), so there's not much pushback from above...
Cynicism is easily a thought-terminating cliche, but it is unfortunately earned nowadays, especially as a coping mechanism for a feeling of helplessness against the usually stupid, sometimes malicious forces at play (Hanlon's Razor doesn't account for weaponization of stupidity).
[1]https://youtu.be/v0VA6u8cTxE?t=540
[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18238827
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...
It's common, at least in the UK, for residential lines to block smtp inbound. That's an ACL, which is operationally ~free. NAT does not serve the purposes you've outlined.
Some cynicism is warranted about, e.g. chat control, but it's better explained by good-faith desire to fight egregious crime coupled with low care for the privacy invasion. Other people have different values to you and me.
It's hard to reconcile an EU government in anyone's pocket with gdpr and dma, which afaics serve citizens and no big interests. Like most governments, the EU is somewhat fractious and incoherent, so it's not a given that everything they do is citizen-friendly. But i, for one, accept that law enforcement should exist; accept that this is inevitably a trade-off against citizen rights; concede that preventing the next bataclan is nigh-on impossible; and understand why some might, to that end, desire greater power to comb through conversations. I don't agree, but i also don't need to assume conspiracy. At heart, the problem is not that all government is evil - although you're welcome to that view - it's that thick pillocks vote without any consideration of nuance.
BitTorrent is certainly built around the idea that upload can be slow. Even if user have upload 100x worse than download, 100 seeders can saturate a leacher, and then the leacher becomes a seeder.
The problem is just that he doesn't stay a seeder forever, because of the other problems.
If a typical user uses preertube 30 mins a day, that still gives a 16 to 1 ratio between seeding and leeching, and a 1024 to 1 data storage to data viewed ratio, meaning there is a good opportunity for a big back catalogue.
Almost everyone I've ever known has problems with running out of phone storage, so I disagree with this.
The seeding while charging and on wifi idea is cool though.
IF I had a penny for every time I heard "unalive", I'd build my own hosting platform.
(Because some laws are stupid. Please support right to repair and DMCA reform.)
I even got 100 times faster upload than 20 years ago...
2. For most people bandwidth did not increase at the same rate as video file sizes during that period, streaming could do smart things like serve transcoded media sized to fit your screen and internet connection. It's only recently with HEVC and AV1 that video file sizes have caught up.
3. Streaming can be easily monetized, p2p generally cannot.
That's fine and there are tools to get that scheduled break back - even the official YouTube app has options to remind you to take a break every X min of watchtime and there are some very advanced general screentime limiting apps out there.
As you say YouTube ads aren't scheduled well and they're too short and unpredictable to even go to the bathroom during. Integrated ad reads are even worse in that regard.
I did without a TV set since I moved in a larger home. Previously I could listen to the TV anywhere in my home, now I can't so instead of pinning me in a place I moved my TV into my phone and tablets. Everything is in an app anyway and for free to air TV I got a couple of RPi 3 with a TV hat and the TVHeadend app.
And when I have guests everybody is watching something different on their phones most of the times.
Smarttube on Android TV just pulls its own APK so you just need to click Install after it downloads and opens it.
F-droid enters the chat.
if someone is seeding that video cause they recently watched it and it remains on their local cache, you could get the bits from there vs hitting youtube servers
The client can pick the optimal encoding and quality which makes that quite a bit more difficult. A user on a modern device that can hardware decode HDR av1 will have a file cached completely useless to a browser that can only do SDR h264.
I think there is a sort of network effect needed to make it become reasonable.
Netflix reported in 2025 something like 30% of traffic was av1. I think smartphone and PC support are fairly robust but under the impression streaming devices are still quite terrible unless it's a Chromecast.
AVC/h.264 is the only thing I know of that's pretty much universally supported at this point. I found a Facebook/Meta report citing some consultant provided data that VP9 was a close second. Limiting to devices from the last few years, HEVC might work.
Nobody uses PeerTube much. I put technical videos on Hardlimit because it doesn't insert ads. I don't care about "discovery"; they're for a tiny audience that comes in from postings elsewhere. Works fine for that. The client side is all Javascript in user's browsers.
Even forgetting that issue, the last thing I want is to use some unknown, unpredictably changing residential connection for my videos. Google has invested in a powerful edge network so they can server my videos lightning quick.
> the last thing I want is to use some unknown, unpredictably changing residential connection for my videos
YouTube only buffers a handful of seconds. Let's say other users would only be used to buffer 30-60 seconds in the future and if it drops below 15 a fast server is used. Does that solve your worries?
As for upside, is fewer ads enough to tempt you? That's the easiest one to do if the fast servers need much less bandwidth.
Found one in the end when I didn't have a choice anymore and put renewed effort into it (Google's algorithm won't let me into my account anymore, saying they don't have enough information to verify it's me (username, password, recovery email.. not enough apparently, but there is nothing else), so I'm a Peertube exclusive now) but iirc I can't use it for everything, like if I wanted to upload something in Dutch I'd have to find a new server that allows my language
P2P is great on desktop computers (and, in the modern age, Smart TV boxes), where your network connection has no data cap, there are no battery concerns, you're unlikely to be behind CGNAT (common for cellular data connections), and the app can surreptitiously minimize itself to tray instead of closing itself outright, making you an unwitting seed.
This is deeply unsubstantiated and does not help contribute to a constructive debate. Please consider thinking more carefully.
If the system is truly distributed it means you might not be able to participate without hosting or transmitting CSAM.
It’s also been used as a deliberate attack, which is known as “pissing in the pool.” Flood the system with CSAM and copyright infringement.
I understand the worry, and it is a difficult problem worth thought but the alarmist virtue signalling helps absolutely no one, victims included.
I listen to the Butthole Surfers and Amboog-a-Lard - I'm willing to bet a good portion of their material has less seeders than much illegal content do.
A product doesn't need to serve EVERY human on earths needs, just enough of them that it can become large enough that established legacy solutions need to adapt.
I get why you might think this wouldn't be a fit for YOU but rather than argue against it from a niche viewpoint instead maybe look at how if it did exist it could be good for many.
Peertube has moderation.
Depends on the P2P architecture. With something like bittorrent / webtorrent you will be distributing CSAM only if you download it yourself first. Otherwise there is no way for any CSAM content to appear on your device. The fear that an algorithm may spread CSAM on the network by making you view one accidentally is a legitimate concern though.
Not sure it is a reason for making hammers illegal?