Fucking hate short videos but if this gets normies on the federated side then I’m all for it
Wait, you want the normies here?
Yes, everyone deserves a bullshit free social experience. You’re more than welcome to go start your own instance that only federates with other hardcore nerd instances
I consider myself a normie. It took me awhile to understand the fediverse.
We are already here.
I was wondering when someone was going to create a Fediverse platform like this. Figured it would be the folks at either PixelFed or Peertube. Can’t wait to try it out!
This is very interesting, but makes me wonder if nonprofit initiatives will be able to host video sharing platforms in the fediverse, because of the server damends of it.
Makes me wonder if we could get an open source Google-style ad platform that only works in the fediverse and directly funds whoever’s server is being used.
Nah, I’d much rather go down the micro transaction route. You get to watch some portion of the video (say, 30s), then you need to pay a few cents to continue.
We’d need a centralized payment service to keep costs down, but the rest can be decentralized. I’m thinking we’d use something like GNU Taler, so you’d load up your account, use Taler to pay creators, and then creators could cash in every to often.
It certainly is possible but the more fancy stuff would need to be locked behind some paywall. Hosting 720p30 content is very doable but if users have the option they will of course upload everything and their mother in 4k60 at which point gl with the storage costs alone, nvm the need for hardware acceleration.
It’ll definitely need some kind of quality enforcement to make hosting work. It’d be really useful if the app would automatically transcode to the server’s preferred quality when uploading, using the uploaders device. If the server has to transcode all the video the compute costs could get astronomical.
There should be no reason not to transcode onboard, right? Modern mobile devices could probably process video no problem and then the upload would be smaller and quicker than sending the original. Only issue might be long videos, but I think there’s a case to be made that these types of platforms should have a firm duration cap of only a few minutes tops.
This is only semi-related but do you think it’s possible to use a neural network to optimize compression?
Edit: wait I just realized I’m stupid this is 4/5 of Nvidia’s AI ventures.
Great name
Great platform name. Though I like the idea, but it’s currently only one developer. It’s the same dev behind Pixelfed. He’s a good dev, but I feel like he’s stretching himself too thin to make both platforms the amount of development they need to pick up steam.
Stretched too thin is an understatement.
Between Pixelfed, Sup, Loops, FediDB, fediverse.info, PubKit, all that comes with developing those, his main job, and whatever else he has cooking, I don’t like being so heavily dependent on the whims of one dev. I have mad respect for him and everything he has done, but this situation is definitely limiting the growth of the platforms, contributions to those platforms, and his general decision making on what to develop and how to prioritize.
I try to be optimistic because in the end what he’s doing is a net positive, but we’re going to need more than one man’s raw coding talent. That’s why although I’m exited for Loops, I’m tempering my expectations and expecting a cap on the popularity and adoption of Loops like with Pixelfed unless something changes.
I mean, it’s open source, right? Be the change etc.
I’m waiting for algorithm. And start promoting it in the United States in the event of TikTok not going to sell.
What are the chances we get a Fediverse YouTube eventually?
You mean Peertube?
I was aware of it, but is it part of the fediverse? If so, I was unaware. I thought it was around before.
As far as I can tell, it’s always used ActivityPub for instances to communicate with each other, with video streaming mainly facilitated using WebTorrent on the backend to keep use of the host low.
This is well timed considering the TikTok ban timeline. Loops will have enough time to sort out any bugs or issues right now with a slow trickle of traffic and then probably grow exponentially in the power vacuum left behind when TikTok vanishes from the various app stores.
I don’t care for short form videos, but this is still really cool. Hopefully it provides an embed URL for the videos so the ones that get posted to Lemmy can be embedded .
this tbh! reddit, tiktok, etc. doesn’t properly embed in discord anymore, so I could just upload funny clips to Loops and have an actual playable embed when I share the link.
Right like this is a mixed bag. I feel like my YouTube shorts addiction is fucking my attention span and I need to get back to watching long form stuff but like also a) fedi isn’t going to have server space for much else and b) it’ll bring the user base fedi will need to grow and maybe have the server space someday.
My other thought is that maybe things like peertube need more communities around streaming where the video isn’t saved, at least by default. This could also be a better direction for the internet as a whole; moving away from this idea that every single moment of everything must be recorded for posterity. The internet really does need more liminal spaces. I really liked the aether model but that guy abandoned the project and lemmy is here now anyway. It would be cool maybe to have a lemmy instance where everything is auto-deleted after 6 months and at least puts out requests to also delete on other servers.
Man, same on the point about YouTube shorts ruining my attention span. The only thing keeping me from an addiction, I feel, is a feeling of guilt when watching shorts instead of long form content.
Whenever I do watch long form content it ends up being more fulfilling and entertaining, too, so I have no idea why our brains are so biased towards short form content.
Been following this for a while and can’t wait to see what it brings to the table. :-)
@PlasticHam nice!
Thanks! :-)
yaayyyyy! :-)
Good.
That sounds cool. We’ve been needing some sort of federated video sharing platform.
There is peertube for years. A simple plugin for shorts would be enough. But hey, I don’t judge the way it goes. Good luck for loops. I hope dansup has some time for his other projects, like sup. Never heard about sup again, is it dead?
I vaguely remember it being put on hold for some alignment with European privacy laws or something along those lines.
It will also come with an open source “For You” algorithm. I’ve been wishing the fediverse do this since I joined and it took literally banning TikTok for it to happen in the span of a few months by dansup for Loops, who thankfully has a favorable outlook on the use of algorithms on the fediverse.
It’s easy to forget that algorithms were originally added to social media as a benefit to the user. It’s easy to miss the content you want to see when you follow lots of accounts.
I would love to see an algorithm that allows for manual adjustment. Kagi search allows a user to raise or lower the priority of individual results. I can’t think of another platform or service that does this explicitly. Most do it implicitly through various forms of engagement.
Sean is really going the wrong way integrating that with pixelfed as the reels counterpart would have been better as the pixelfed servers aldready support big enough file size for a 30s or a minute videos . Like lemmy definetly has got a chance coming out on top against reddit but pixelfed will never overtake or be on par with insta if it goes this way people need groups and calling features etc. because insta is mainly about being a social platform rather than sharing pics my guess would be even tho pixelfed aspires to be insta which is pretty clear it does based on its ui ( don’t argue its supposed to be a place for nerds to post pics because atleast the dev doesn’t see it that way and is often advertised as a fediverse instagram alt ) but it’ll stay as only a place for nerds to post their pics and eventually be unactive and die out .
The devs on fediverse seem unable to grasp the concept that it is not big enough for a thousand projects to spring up suddenly and will do more harm stretching the aldready thin userbase than good . Maybe try making the aldready good softwares than reinventing the wheel ? Its not like we can’t fork it in the future no need to have a couple of alternatives built for just incase scenario or anything . But still i hope it works out well enough for the devs and gets some of Americans as tiktok is banned there no i think and maybe there is a market for alternative .
I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted. You are completely correct. There is a trail of partially finished projects. Pixelfed itself is in beta after years and years (and competitors seizing the opportunity with more polished products) , there’s SUP, Loops and that fedi directory to name three more.
What competitors to pixelfed are there?
I agree. Having loops within pixelfed makes more sense.
It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this:
.....,,,,,,
Bet the killer feature here is going to be pluggable recommendation algorithms.
Love the fediverse.
