The only real attempt at monetisation that I’ve seen is https://beetoons.tv/, but they use their own crypto - making it like Odysee. Why is that?
Edit: Please, before you answer consider this monetisation doesn’t mean ads!
I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
None of the major Fediverse projects have real monetization.
Why single out PeerTube?
Why would you expect monetization at this point?
Do you think it should be monetized, or are you just surprised it hasn’t been?
What form of monetization are you imagining?
None of the major Fediverse projects have real monetization.
Why single out PeerTube?To me, Peertube is the most obvious. Lots of work goes into creating videos. I don’t use funkwhale, so I didn’t consider it. Monetisation for comments and tweets just seems questionable to me. Reddit introduced reddit gold, and I guess that could be one way of doing it 🤔 It would allow instance operators to keep the instance alive and users happy at the same time. IMO reddit gold was a genius move which could be implemented in lemmy or elsewhere. Same as Discords paid emojis and stuff.
Why would you expect monetization at this point?
At which point should I be considering monetisation? It’s always disappointing to me to have to go back to Youtube and pick the right, alternative client that currently works. And I do like some of the content I subscribe to, but I can’t be arsed to create 10 different accounts in order to donate indiscriminately, regardless of how many videos I watched of a content creator.
Do you think it should be monetized, or are you just surprised it hasn’t been?
I think it should be monetised.
What form of monetization are you imagining?
Tips for one off micro-donations, manual entry of tip amounts (this was so good I think it deserves a euro), “donated subscriptions”, and automatic donations based on how much is in my wallet at the time. I think there was a micro-transaction plugin for browsers that did that? The more you stayed on a website the greater the percentage of money was donated to it from your wallet.
But I haven’t seen it implemented and dunno if it’s the lack of interest, lack of skill, lack of possibility (maybe no payment provider makes that possible?), a combination, or all of the aforementioned.
I think monetisation is more important on Peertube than other federated platforms I can think of.
We want people to post high quality videos on PeerTube. The production of high quality video content requires a lot of work and often also a decent chunk of money to produce. It’s not like a toot or a post on Pixelfed, which is often not labour intensive at all. A photographer or an artist might very well showcase their work on Pixelfed, or an author their writing on Mastodon, but it would not compete with their business idea as people who are interested would still need to buy prints/high resolution versions/ebooks/subscriptions/whatever.
On PeerTube, it’s very different. We want content creators to not only put money and time into creating quality content, but ideally we want them to host the content themselves in order to maintain full control over it. Without monetisation there’s just no reason why they would be interested in doing that.
The question of how is of course much more difficult than the why.
Sponsorships is one obvious candidate. In theory this wouldn’t require anything extra from Peertube - the producers of videos could easily add their own ads within the videos. However, sponsors are only interested in sponsoring content that has an audience, and the audience is on YouTube. Sponsored content is also potentially bad for obvious reasons.
Donations might make more sense, as they scale better to smaller but dedicated audiences. It is difficult to get people to cross the threshold for making them, but it’s not exactly easy to make a profit on YouTube either. Donations good because they encourage quality, rather than ads which tend to favour views over substance.
So finally, traditional ads. We all hate them. They suck, and if they’re incorporated they’ll probably be blocked anyway. But I’m sure there’s a case to be made in their favour - if it’s implemented on the instance level, I certainly wouldn’t be in a position to criticize. It could be necessary in order to host content on free instances, where people could build a following and then move on to self-hosting or join more restrictive ad-free instances should they get the opportunity to.
Personally I wouldn’t be opposed to having a sort of virtual tip jar functionality. I could imagine myself paying $25 into a virtual wallet maintained by Liberapay, and to press a button underneath PeerTube videos to donate $1 to the creator whenever I found something was worthy of kudos. Maybe users with non-empty wallets could be rewarded with extra filters in Sepia search or something like that.
The best answer to why monetisation hasn’t been figured out on PeerTube yet is, however, that it hasn’t been figured out on the Internet in general. It’s just really difficult, and every push towards monetisation tends to be the first step towards any service becoming completely shit. It’s a really difficult problem. The Fediverse and PeerTube might solve some problems by being less dependant on monetisation in the first place, but that doesn’t automatically make it an easy fix. More than anything we probably need an attitude change.
A good start would be to challenge the culture that makes monetisation so difficult, for example by making a donation to FramaSoft. Or simply make active use of the “support” button that already exists under many PeerTube videos. :)
Why does it need monetisation? Why can’t we have a place online where we aren’t bombarded with adverts or having our data vacuumed to sell to advertisers?
I have no issues with sponsorship in videos or creators plugging their stores/Pateron/Kofi in content. What I mind is pre roll and shoehorned ads partway through content that have no respect for my audio settings or the flow of the content.
Why does it need monetisation?
Because the number of people who are willing to put in the work and create quality content without any potential reward is too low to be relevant. Without a credible model for monetisation, content creators will always prefer to stay in the closed platforms. If we want the open web to be a real alternative for everyone and not just a fringe thing, we need to be able to attract everyone.
data vacuumed to sell to advertisers?
Maybe I am getting old, but I do remember the time where “ads” did not automatically imply “Surveillance Capitalism”. The problem is not the former, but the latter.
I have no issues with sponsorship in videos or creators plugging their stores/Pateron/Kofi in content.
Easy for you to say, but how many creators do you know that can make a living exclusively off their Patreon? And of those that do, how many managed to get known without putting their content on a closed platform?
the number of people who are willing to put in the work and create quality content without any potential reward is too low
Maybe, but the number of dimwits willing to make sensationalist drivel to make a buck is staggering. Exhibit A, any Youtuber. I prefer not to have that incentive in the Fediverse.
Do you know that story about the pottery teacher that made an experiment by separating students into two groups, one was going to be graded by how many pieces they made (quantity), the other by their best piece (quality), and that in the end the group that worried about quantity ended up producing better work than the ones focused on quality?
It’s the same thing with the internet. You are familiar with Sturgeon’s Law, right? Instead of looking at the 90% of crap (quality), we should find always to churn out as much content as possible so that the non-crap 10% can be of a reasonable number.
I honestly do not care about the dimwits on YouTube, but it pains me that I can not convince someone like @geerlingguy@mastodon.social to leave YouTube to post his content on an open alternative, because that would be the same as asking to stop having the resources to keep doing the amazing work that he does.
So, in your pottery story only one in 10 mass produced pots would be better (by some fuzzy criteria) than those by somebody who actually pit their mind and creativity to it? Sounds wasteful AF, dude.
Similarly, a glance at that Geerling guy’s website tells me that he is already maintaining around twenty different social profiles. So I guess his Youtube ad revenue goes into supporting that promotional effort, as well as the amazing work I’ve never heard of.
I respect your efforts with Communick, even if I don’t agree with your examples. I’m just not interested in an internet that tries to center commercial revenue as a raison d’être. I’ll support people who would be doing what they do without that motivation.
I’m not arguing for “commercial revenue as a raison d’être”. I’m arguing that it’s a numbers game.
Even if 100% of the people here on this small, elitist, open web were “good” (which is not true), a web that is universal and only 10% “good” would be better.
Why can’t we have a place online where we aren’t bombarded with adverts or having our data vacuumed to sell to advertisers?
I’ll repeat this again: monetisation does not mean ads. If you believe ads are the only way to monetise something, you have been lied to or are giving in to programming.
Why does it need monetisation?
How do you think content creators survive?
Why does it need monetisation?
Hosting costs money. “Monetization” doesn’t mean disruptive ads.
Hosting cost money, so an host can setup a patreon to make money to host his peertube instance.
Monetisation like YouTube-monetisation means ads everywhere because, monetisation on YouTube comes from publicity.
Hosting cost money, so an host can setup a patreon to make money to host his peertube instance.
That’s a type of monetization.
Monetisation like YouTube-monetisation means ads everywhere because, monetisation on YouTube comes from publicity.
OP didn’s ask about “YouTube-like monetization”.
Op wasn’t very specific on what monetisation he was talking about either.
What is your point exactly?
Op wasn’t very specific on what monetisation he was talking about either.
Why did you make crazy assumptions, then?
What is your point exactly?
That you made crazy assumptions that were never in OP’s question in the first place.
1/ I just gave one example of monetisation that is working with peertube as it is now.
2/ And I explain briefly why most replies make the link with monetisation and ads.
I didn’t make any assumption in 1, I answer the question : monetisation on peertube is possible right now. In 2, I assume Op didn’t understand why people react often as if monetisation was equal to ads. But I didn’t assume Op was talking about that specifically, because if I was I wouldn’t have suggested an alternative monetisation system in 1 in the first place.
Lastly, you used the word crazy about me two sentences in a row, on a two sentences post. Chill.
Lastly, you used the word crazy about me two sentences in a row, on a two sentences post. Chill.
The person who could let the simple and true statement “Hosting costs money. “Monetization” doesn’t mean disruptive ads.” stand is in no position to tell others to chill. Maybe just accept true statements next time.
First, please clarify what sort of non-ad monetization you are talking about.
Second, we don’t need monetization. The commercialization of the Web, while handy for a while, is exactly why it’s decayed so much. We don’t need to import the cause of web rot here.
Unfortunately, Content Creator is not likely a solid long-term career. Don’t take this as dismissive of the effort that goes into quality videos. Some people really do treat it legitimately as a craft. However, the vocation was basically created through heavy subsidies from tech/ad companies, trying to get eyes on the ad space that they want to sell. Due to Chicago School economics (line must go up), and the fact that there is only so much ad space, tech companies are going to look to remove the cost of these subsidies, likely through a combination of generated content and removal of payouts, so that myopic investors can be happy.
So, how can you support yourself while still creating videos, etc? Well, if you don’t have a production company supporting you, you’ll need to learn business yourself or sell your talent to someone who is running a production company. As much as I would like for people to be able to do whatever they want with their lives, we’re currently stuck in a neoliberal hellscape where a working artist has to work and also be a business person.
Nostr has. Over the last two months alone, their users have “zapped” (tipped/donated) other users around 950K (nearly 1 mil!) USD worth via lightning and that number continues to grow. And it doesn’t just make it easy to pay content creators, but to also put a portion of your “zaps” towards the relay you use or development of the software if you want. If you have a nostr account, you can easily tie it to a lightning address to send/receive tips, nostr doesn’t take a fee. Relays can also portion out a bit of their zaps for the people who publish the most engaging content on their relay. The possibilities are quite extensive. And because it’s over lightning, zaps happen instantly and for pennies or less in fees. Though, you can use nostr without zaps at all.
For those unfamiliar with nostr, it’s a decentralized social media software much like ActivityPub/mastodon, the main use right now is as a twitter/instagram clone but there’s also a reddit-style section being built up as well. Moderation abilities from the perspective of the instance/relay are identical. But one bonus if that if your relay goes down, you don’t lose your identity, since your identity and relay are separate. And if you change apps or relays (you are typically connected to multiple relays), all your content moves with you seamlessly. And the payment/zap infrastructure is all decentralized, relays don’t ever custody the payments. If you tip a content creator, it goes directly from you to them. The lightning network has basically limitless transaction capacity. If you have cash app, it supports lightning, so you can already send zaps (you will need different apps to receive zaps though because cash app doesn’t support the LNURL standard). Strike natively supports it.
Long-term, if I am a content creator, which “fedi”-type system is going to be attractive to me? One where users can send me tips and mircopayments or one where they can’t? This is why I think nostr is going to win out long-term over AP/Mastodon. Mastodon could add this kind of functionality but I don’t get the impression they’re open to it. People may not want to commit to yet another $5/month subscription to a YouTuber’s patreon or nebula or whatever, but they are happy to tip 1-10c after watching a video. So there’s a psychological beauty to micropayments as well. As some random person I have made like 7c on tips this month, but I’ve also given out plenty to other people.
Source about nostr fees: https://lemmy.ml/post/17824358
Dam thats really cool.
Very interesting, thanks
Also it’s worth mentioning the “how to distribute content among peers” problem has mostly been solved and has for a decade, just that nobody has built out the UX for it. Torrents exist, #freenet and #hyphanet exist, #ipfs exists, these are all excellent platforms for storing and distributing content without relying on expensive, centralized hosting. Instead, users share the burden of hosting.
If you have a tube site and it says “to skip ads, install IPFS”, everybody would be using IPFS.
I think part of the problem is that many of the p2p tech are caught in a tradeoff between giving hosts control of what they host (and therefore there is content that gets lost), and ensuring content availability (risking alienating hosts).
No way would I participate in a p2p network where I don’t have full control over what I host, for the same reason I won’t use p2p VPNs nor will I host a TOR exit node.
But then who is going to host the unpopular content?Each network has its own way of addressing this with pros and cons. Personally, idc, I don’t mind being a “router” in exchange for other computers “routing” to me. I don’t mind the idea of sharing my internet connection via wifi with my neighborhood, it should be a resource for all.
The cost of having open communication networks or free speech or privacy or any liberties is that people may use those liberties to do bad things, but I’d rather live in a world where we have liberties that sometimes get abused than in a world without liberties where those who control things get basically unlimited abuse of the same liberties we are not afforded.
The problem is we’re not there yet.
There are no protections for me if I unknowingly let some stranger use me as a host or router for CP or some pedo shit. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. There need to be legal protections in place, like there are for ISPs.
I’m ok with living in a world where liberties are sometimes abused, but I’m not ok with a world where innocents get punished for the actions of strangers.
There are no protections for me if I unknowingly let some stranger use me as a host or router for CP or some pedo shit. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. There need to be legal protections in place, like there are for ISPs.
There are, at least in the US. That’s why running a Tor node is legal and so is a coffee-shop sharing their wifi to customers. They are not legally liable for actions of users, they are just routers.
I’m not familiar with those protections, but I’m not confident in them actually holding up in court considering the technical sophistication of the network compared to the technical competence of the courts.
But it’s good to know that there are at least protections in theory.
Pretty well established case law at this point. If it weren’t, you’d see Tor relay operators, small ISPs, etc being hauled into court constantly.
The problem isn’t making monetization available, it’s having sufficient pull in the market to make it viable.
And then the next problem is being able to scale the network big enough to handle the traffic and storage requirements for hosted video. When let me runs out of go juice The traffic can easily be handled by a few inexpensive servers. When we’re talking about video storage those petabytes start getting really expensive.
The problem isn’t making monetization available, it’s having sufficient pull in the market to make it viable.
That’s creating an chicken and egg problem.
We won’t create monetization options until there’s pull
We won’t join until there’s monetizationSomeone has to break the tie and it’s much easier for us than content creators.
When we’re talking about video storage those petabytes start getting really expensive.
You’re worrying about a scenario a decade out. Also it’s not like peertube is a single entity. It’s a federated group of servers that will each host a part of the total. Not every peer will host the total, so there are no such restrictions on storage.
There’s an important element to monetization in the Fediverse that people are not tackling:
Money movement is tracked. And we are here mostly to avoid tracking.
I have this account tied to my more-or-less-real persona, but I have 12 more accounts in the Fediverse not tied to it. If setting up something like a subscription service would mean Fediverse has to implement eg.: KYC laws, or attach accounts to real person banking info, then I’m barred from participating in this real money economy in 11/12ths of the Fediverse even if I liked the content.
If you don’t donate, how will you be tracked?
I am precluded from donating, is the point.
Now, if there’s a good solution to that that doesn’t involve cr*pto, I’m all ears.
How are you precluded from donating? Which methods of donating exist where you are?
What’s wrong with donations? Also how doesn’t monetisation imply ads? What way is there to make money relabile while watching something besides ads?
Merch? That a secondary revenue stream not tied to the consumption of that product (video).
Paid subs aka recurring donations? Yeah just set up a KoFi or patreon.
What way is there to make money relabile while watching something besides ads?
A monthly subscription. Source: Real life. We’ve explored all of these a long long time ago, and it comes down to subscription and ads, everything else didn’t make the race.
bruh… read the last sentence of my comment…
There will never be enough donations to cover the cost of hosting videos.
Donations are one form, but the flow thereof isn’t optimal in peertube. Viewers can’t donate just by having an account on peertube. It’s not “a click a way” like a “donated subscription” or something. I can’t create an account on peertube, connect it to my bank directly or some payment processor, go to a creator and click “donated subscription”, then expect money to end up with the content creator.
Youtube doesn’t require setting up KoFi or patreon or something. At the base level, if your video gets popular and you have subscribers, you’ll get paid (or that is my understanding). Peertube has a higher barrier.
And what’s youtubes cut of the Membership/Super Thanks/View Impression?
Good question. Probably high enough for people to want Patreon and KoFi and with a low enough barrier that people are fine starting out with it - something peertube cannot claim.
Yup YouTube makes it very easy to receive money from adds and people that have YouTube premium. Having a YouTube premium subscription means that you are at least supporting the creator of every video that you watch a little bit (from what I can find 55% of what you pay is going to the creators). Yes YouTube takes quite a large cut, but video hosting in high quality costs a lot of money.
I think it will be very hard to do this on a decentralised platform. People don’t trust just anyone with their money, so it could lead to people abandoning smaller servers and you can be sure that bad actors would pop up and try to abuse the system. And even if you do this the right way, you would have to build this system entirely before you can convince creators to move to this platform.
It will also be really hard to offer the same quality and reliability that YouTube offers, without taking a larger cut than the 45% that YouTube takes. Hosting a large video platform is expensive, and many of the Fediverse users are anti-adds and will run an add-blocker and maybe even sponsor-blocker.
It will also be really hard to offer the same quality and reliability that YouTube offers, without taking a larger cut than the 45% that YouTube takes.
Why do you assume so? Peertube instances have been pretty good for me so far. I rarely stumble upon unavailable videos nowadays. Still a little salty that they implemented their own protocol making webtorrents unavailable --> no headless seeds.
many of the Fediverse users are anti-adds and will run an add-blocker and maybe even sponsor-blocker.
Are you assuming monetisation = ads?
One way would be to have a monthly subscription on your home Peertube instance with a certain percentage being passed through by the instance admins to creators on other instances.
Peertube has a solution built in. Creators can put in links to their Patreon, Liberapay, Ko-Fi or other donation platforms, and it’ll show a “Support” button underneath every video.
They don’t do crypto or ads in the core Peertube project. However, you can install add-ons as an instance administrator.
I don’t see any better solution as of today.
In-built monetisation that doesn’t require opening third party websites for every person you want to donate to. Maybe even a tip button or “donate subscription”. That’s what would be better.
With “better solution as of today” I meant more a viable solution as of today. And I don’t see any.
I completely agree that some in-built, more convenient monetization would be great. But… That’d immediately make them a whole different business. Now they need to handle money for people and become a payment provider. That’d probably require them to change their legal form. They need to hire people to manage that money. They get liable for it. And where money is involved there are disagreements and lawsuits. So they need an additional customer service. Probably also a proper legal team. All those people want a salary, so they have to make profit to pay them.
I think it’s a nice idea, but it would turn Peertube from a nice project that’s made by some programmers for us, the people, into a business halfway alike YouTube. And we already have YouTube. The nice thing about Peertube is that it’s about freedom and the content and less annoying business things involved.
And that’s often the case with smaller projects. Now the programmers do the thing they’re good at: program the software. If we make them do something else, that’s gonna be at the cost of the project. They’ll become managers and can’t attend to the thing they’re good at and what we’d like them to do.
Feel free to come up with a solution. I’d like to hear it. Because I’d also like to see some bigger Youtubers on Peertube. And they won’t come if they have to spend money on servers, instead of earning money.
There liberapay (patreon alternative) and mitra (patreon paywall alternative). there is also a peertube plugin.
Other then that having something that can show ads on videos but with an option to disable ads with pay (something like youtube premium), could be useful,
Great idea, im wondering myself, since it was a core goal of framasofts peertube to have donation integration or something similar, but it never happened. Hope someone is still working on it.
I feel like I’d be totally fine with ads that can be controlled user end. Like, what if there was a little switch by the video you’re watching to enable ad breaks, directly supporting the creator and the instance. (As long as they’re not baked into the stream so instances can’t force them to be always on.)
Because anyone with a computer can host a peertube instance. Therefore is you want your videos on peertube it will cost you nothing more than what you already have : a computer running and an internet access.
The only real barrier is having the time and the knowledge to set it up.
Peertube is tech solution to host video, not a way to make money with videos. Monetisation can be done with peertube, but it’s up to creators to set it up.
Peertube is tech solution to host video, not a way to make money with videos. Monetisation can be done with peertube, but it’s up to creators to set it up.
Why should it be up to the creators? On youtube creators don’t have to think about “setting up monetisation”. Upload a video, ads are active, done. Peertube doesn’t have something that simple - and I’m not saying “we need ads”. Monetisation != ads.
Because YouTube wants you to not think, but just provide content and shut up.
Peertube (libre softwares in generals) requires to think about things and to make choices by yourself. It doesn’t try to be more than what it is = a tool for easily host videos.
Peertube isn’t a platform.
Because YouTube wants you to not think, but just provide content and shut up.
What’s wrong with that? When you drive a car, ride a bus, fly on a plane, or use anything in general, do you have to understand the inner workings of everything?
Well if you don’t know how to operate a car, you should not drive. If you don’t know the basics, you won’t be able to do small repairs yourself. If you don’t know nothing about cars at all, you will likely have to paid more than someone with more knowledge to obtain the same result. Ask any cab if he just pays and doesn’t know anything about cars.
If you’re a video creator who wants to make money with your videos, you should be knowledgeable about monetisation and video making. Don’t be lazy, it’s just your job.
Well if you don’t know how to operate a car, you should not drive
True, but you don’t have to understand how an engine works in order to drive a car. Same goes for content creators. They don’t have to understand how monetisation works to get started on youtube. It just happens.
If you’re a video creator who wants to make money with your videos, you should be knowledgeable about monetisation and video making. Don’t be lazy, it’s just your job.
Yeah, I disagree. Adding that barrier is exactly the attitude greybeard linux users have and why linux has the bad image it has. It shouldn’t be necessary to be knowledgeable about everything in order to do something. Having a lower barrier for entry encourages use.
I would say that the comparison hit a wall here. It seems that there is nothing between pushing a button to get money and learning how peertube is coded and is working internally for you… To be fair to YouTube creators, pushing a button isn’t enough to make you money in most cases.
There is 2 things here: 1_ you want to make and host video. 2_ you want to make videos and make money with it.
In case 1 you don’t care about money, so there is no problem. In case 2 you want money, to me if you want money you should know how to make money with the tools you have (or use other tools if needed). I agree that with Peertube it’s harder to move from case 1 to case 2 easily as it is with YouTube. But the main focus of YouTube in the last years is not sharing content but making money. As I was saying Peertube is a video host software not a tool to make money with videos. It isn’t build with this goal set as the primary one.
WHY DON’T WE MAKE THIS SHITTIER???
Funny, I said “monetisation”, you heard “ads”. Do you think that’s the only way to monetise something?
Funny, I said “monetisation”, you heard “ads”.
You don’t know what I heard. Please do not speculate.
Do you think that’s the only way to monetise something?
No, but I’ve been around the block often enough to know that “monetization” almost always means “take something away from people and then sell it back to them”.
Ads are best case. I can filter those out. The rest is worse.
You don’t know what I heard. Please do not speculate.
OK, then.
Ads are best case. I can filter those out. The rest is worse.
What other options do you think there are?
You keep posting that link without making a point. What is your point?
I’ll talk about the link if you can tell me which monesation options you know of, besides ads, and how you think they’ll make peertube worse.
Oh fuck off. What a massive wanker thing to post.
You try to derail the conversation and when I try to get it back on topic, you call me a “wanker” and tell me to “fuck off” and don’t even answer the question pertaining to the topic 🤷 OK.
I don’t think that’s mean to be OP’s point but rather a footnote for anti-AI copyright stuff or something. I saw few other people do that as well.
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