Important proposals for future versions of peertube

PeerTube
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I am YouTube since 2007, currently I have between all my channels about 2,000 videos and approximately 3 million followers, with all the humility in the world, I would like to contribute some ideas that I consider important to make PeerTube a platform desired by all.

First of all, the implementation of live streaming has been a giant step in making PeerTube a great video platform, but it additionally requires these important elements:

  • A built-in chat: chat is an important element of interaction between subscribers and the speaker, a live stream might not be differentiated from a regularly uploaded video.
    • The chat would need to expand into a separate window that could be captured by software such as OBS, therefore, it would be necessary to be able to implement CSS to the chat: Example: https://chatv2.septapus.com/
    • A very important source of revenue for live streams is live donations that would be highlighted by that CSS, so enabling the possibility to connect payment platforms like PayPal or cryptocurrencies to the chat with a donation button would be a great financial help for the creators. (I know youtubers who earn more from live donations than from advertising revenue).

  • Implement the possibility that the video can be externally viewed from specific domains, so that the owner could charge from his website (domain) the viewing of the same.

  • Possibility of injecting configurable banners or short advertising videos in the videos.

  • Banners that could be configured in position, time, size and repetition throughout the video, at the beginning or at the end.
  • Short video banners that could be injected in a specific position.
    • Possibility of placing banners on the page of the instance itself (outside the video) in the footer of the video, in its header or between the comments in which the speaker’s articles are promoted (online shop, T-shirts, pins…).
  • Basic statistics
    • Generate some basic statistics system with the three most important elements that make up a video:
      • Views, viewing time, subscribers gained, configurable between
      • configurable between given dates
      • Real time stats of newly uploaded videos are a great help, but it might be too complex to know the best upload times, the best days and if the topic is more or less accepted by the audience.

- Channel personalisation

  • Being able to personalise each channel is important to improve the attractiveness of the instance itself.
  • Many years ago, YouTube allowed images to be placed on the channel cover, both in the margins and in the header, and also allowed a certain degree of configuration of the text colours.
  • Placing lists on the channel’s front page as well as a video presentation.
  • More information about the channel owner:
  • email, links to their websites and social networks, channels they follow…
  • A « community area » would be desirable, where, unlike the videos, the channel owner could post articles, photos, general comments that would reach the entire audience, where subscribers could respond to them.
  • A simple APP for Android and Apple devices with a configurable icon for each instance.
    • This would allow to get rid of the annoying browser as an intermediate element between mobile devices and instances.

I know Peertube has its own spirit and doesn’t want to look too much like YT, but changes like these would make PeerTube something very desirable for all creators.

Thank you all very much for your great work.

PS: I can’t find the place to donate to the peertube project, could you please point me to it?

3.141592

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I read it and it even took my breath away! If the developers implement what you wrote about, then it will be very attractive for viewers and channel owners … and of course for administrators!
On the main page of the project site there is a button Donate at the top …

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This commentary is just my opinion on those idea’s, please don’t take it personal.
Some of these suggestions rely on reasons for me to leave the YT platform.
In my point of view some of them are basically a request to turn PT in to some shouting service as being TW/YT.

A very important source of revenue for live streams is live donations that would be highlighted by that CSS, so enabling the possibility to connect payment platforms like PayPal or cryptocurrencies to the chat with a donation button would be a great financial help for the creators. (I know youtubers who earn more from live donations than from advertising revenue).

A built-in chat: chat is an important element of interaction between subscribers and the speaker, a live stream might not be differentiated from a regularly uploaded video.
The chat would need to expand into a separate window that could be captured by software such as OBS, therefore, it would be necessary to be able to implement CSS to the chat: Example: https://chatv2.septapus.com/
A very important source of revenue for live streams is live donations that would be highlighted by that CSS, so enabling the possibility to connect payment platforms like PayPal or cryptocurrencies to the chat with a donation button would be a great financial help for the creators. (I know youtubers who earn more from live donations than from advertising revenue).

A livestream chat would be nice, but if people like some content, they have that one support button every PT viewer will be able to find. pleas don’t push it in someone’s face the whole the time, it’s a method to simply ignore, for me at least(where does it end to get even more attention?).
Inject it in to the video capture if you feel the audience does not feel recognised for their contribution in financial/seeding* support of the content they like to watch, if necessary have some donators chart page referenced so some can enjoy a form of competition, or even render a stream outro based on such list.

Implement the possibility that the video can be externally viewed from specific domains, so that the owner could charge from his website (domain) the viewing of the same.

If so, I would think of this being parallel only, a light obstacle that will kindly encourage to pay for convenience of directly embedded content and such(as I see it, just to cover on commerce parties), or these DNS’d channels/video’s should be excluded default from search results, as they can wreck up the value of the results.
Bring it to the extend of donating on a separate income url to end up on DNS whitelist, threat them equal as your direct viewers, but on their level of usage with the content.
But I think that would be bad if such will break when sharing inside applications(and what about non profit websites), your close by audience who are already there to promote your content.

Possibility of injecting configurable banners or short advertising videos in the videos.
Banners that could be configured in position, time, size and repetition throughout the video, at the beginning or at the end.
Short video banners that could be injected in a specific position.
Possibility of placing banners on the page of the instance itself (outside the video) in the footer of the video, in its header or between the comments in which the speaker’s articles are promoted (online shop, T-shirts, pins…).

In my opinion that will result in the bloated experience people should only find on YT.

The nice thing about PT is that I don’t have to block anything, I will block such by default if I can, because I do not want to maintain exceptions for those few who do not abuse it in extend(I would even be driven to make videos how to block these injections), your suggesting functionality for an experience I strongly dislike about YT.

Channel personalisation

Being able to personalise each channel is important to improve the attractiveness of the instance itself.    
Many years ago, YouTube allowed images to be placed on the channel cover, both in the margins and in the header, and also allowed a certain degree of configuration of the text colours.
Placing lists on the channel’s front page as well as a video presentation.

Taste differs, for me it’s attractive when I can just view the content, without having to load all sorts of bloat, just the least amount of exceptional text markup around it(interfering the least with OS theme, when you configure some PT instance to use the dark theme, I think it’s best to honour that across the channels as well)

More information about the channel owner:
email, links to their websites and social networks, channels they follow…

People should be able to read about that in the channel description.

A « community area » would be desirable, where, unlike the videos, the channel owner could post articles, photos, general comments that would reach the entire audience, where subscribers could respond to them.

Why aiming for an massive and intense to maintain all-in-one solution, when open projects like Mastodon, Pixelfed and others of choice already cover that at their best?

A simple APP for Android and Apple devices with a configurable icon for each instance.
This would allow to get rid of the annoying browser as an intermediate element between mobile devices and instances.

I think it would be great if there where *clients(like « WebTorrent » that is covering these platforms and being able to (only)playback from PT already) that could make use of a PT library to support instances with active seedings of the material.
This would allow more alternatives to rise for Linux desktop/Linux mobile or Adroid and Apple(with it’s beloved annual developers expenses).

Please keep the overall experience as neutral as it can be, let the content speak for it’s own, without adding toxic waste in order to enforce self sustainability(keep it at least to a minimum).

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Message received

3141592

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I agree, in fact the first customization I tried to implement was a chat inspired by the recent FOSDEM online conference.

That being said I would argue that a more attractive path in terms of both maintenance and customization is that PeerTube focuses on video. That’s why I believe most of the idea you suggested follow the path of plugins.

I recently shared about it https://twitter.com/utopiah/status/1361372344950919176 and from what I played with I think most of your ideas could be covered there. Have a look please and let me know if you see something that you believe would be impossible without relying on the existing plugin system. If you believe it could be done then I suggest fleshing out specifications from indeed the point of view of « successful » streamers.

PS : seems you are already involved in https://github.com/JohnXLivingston/peertube-plugin-livechat so the question follows, what would be missing from that plugin then. I do think the growth of Peertube now that it « just works » will come from the ability of the community to successfully handle such cycles of need discovery, exploration with working solution, improvement, sharing and documenting for newcomers so it’s very important IMHO.

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Hello @3141592 (and everyone !),

We (I’m co-director and a member of Framasoft) took time before answering, because part of our answer was included in our roadmap for 2021, towards PeerTube v4.

I use the word « roadmap » loosely, as we want to keep some room to react and change our minds when hearing feedbacks. Anyway, we have just publised it, you can read it here: https://joinpeertube.org/news#roadmap-v4

I hope you’ll be happy to hear that channel customization (as well as instance customization) are planned for the next months.

Moreover, we are supporting @JohnLivingston’s work on the PeerTube Live Chat plugin because we, too, think it’s really important to have a good chat tool for live streams.

About advertisement, statistics tools and overall PeerTube’s success I don’t think we share the same point of vue. We are making PeerTube as an alternative to tools developed by companies from the Surveillance Capitalism economic system.

Those big tech companies have often intertwined a video broadcasting tool with a monetization system. It is essential to us not to make the same mistake, we want to keep PeerTube neutral in terms of monetization (FaQ). If people want to add a monetization system to their PeerTube instance, they are free to develop and install a plugin (some already did), but it won’t be in the core code.

Statistics are another can of beans. They might seem a usefull tool (and most of the time they are), but the way you choose to present them can really play with a content creator’s minds, and how they script their videos. I speak as a former YouTuber (who had 42k subscribers, for a French channel about sex-ed in 2016, it was not little) when I say that I saw first hand how Google uses all the tools in their trade to make one fit into their attention economics mechanisms. Choosing which stat to highlight (and which to hide or bury), and playing with our numbers-loving minds, is one of them.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t improve the stats in PeerTube. But, As we want to create something different, with different values (FaQ), we must first take time to find out how to do it right.

All in all, we don’t make PeerTube for YouTubers to find another platform with the same mechanisms. We make PeerTube for all those who already are excluded from YouTube (and Twitch, and…) because creators and sharers who don’t look for money or fame are ostracized by these companies, or because talking about queer, feminists or climate issues isn’t bankable, and don’t please advertisers (who are the real YouTube’s clientèle).

It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t listen to content creators who already managed to adapt to YouTube’s system such as you (and thanks again for your feedback). It just means that we won’t always share the same priorities, and that our Key Success Indicator won’t be the quantity of PeerTube users, nor the quantity of content creators migrating to PeerTube, but to see some new creators, dismissed by Google’s politics, empowering themselves on the fediverse.

I hope that cleared things up.

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