Is it just me, or does PeerTube seem like it’s missing a general-purpose, beginner-friendly instance — similar to how Mastodon has Mastodon.Social, and Lemmy has Lemmy.World?
What I’m thinking of is omething like PeerTube.Video (or a similarly neutral and approachable name).
It could be geared toward:
New users who aren’t sure which instance to pick
Ideal for general folks migrating from YouTube who just want to upload and watch videos without needing to understand federation or instance quirks right away
Older or less tech-savvy users who find federation a bit overwhelming
General-purpose content creators and viewers
etc.
Yes, instances like PeerTube.wtf exist and are well-federated — but, IMO, no offence meant, I feel the name might not be the most inviting choice for a “mainstream” or flagship instance.
It feels similar to if sh.itjust.works had become the go-to Lemmy instance instead of Lemmy.World.
This wouldn’t mean centralizing PeerTube — it would still be volunteer-run like the other flagship instances on the Fediverse.
But it could act as a soft landing pad, for general users who are used to centralized social media: a welcoming, YouTube-like entry point that’s still fully federated.
What do you think?
Would this help adoption and accessibility, or is it better for PeerTube to stay entirely decentralized without a “main” instance?
I’m fairly sure Peertube is a bit more distributed due to the storage requirements that come with video. And while we can all chip in a few hundred Gigabytes and add lots of smaller instances, it’d be hard for an entity to finance something like a default instance. I’d expect it to be a few hundred bucks per month and 10,000 users. So that becomes less of a hobby and a proper job. And it needs to be paid or someone needs to make sure a lot of donations come in and manage all of that more like a business.