Pretty much in the title. Maybe you wouldn’t even use it, but would like to simply see it exist for the sake of having a federated alternative.
For me, it’d be the following:
- Meetup
- Tiktok
I am on the first two, but would prefer a federated alternative. I’m not on Tiktok, but would like to see a federated alternative.
I’ll admit these might not be a good idea. But as a thought experiment, I’d be curious about the community weigh in on what you all think this might look like.
A video platform would be great. Like TikTok, or stories from Facebook, Insta or YT.
PeerTube has standard videos, but not the Stories part if I’m lot mistaken.
Tiktok
The problem with video content (even short videos) is, that it generates an absurd amount of traffic and needs lots and lots of local data storage. This is also why there are so few PeerTube instances.
PeerTube would be a way to publish your short clips, too. Not as specialized as TikTok, but still …
Yeah the data is an issue for sure. I wonder if torrents of some kind would help making it more doable, where viewers (on computers, not phones) build up a cache from which they also seed. Like Spotify did when they started out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeroNet
Something similar to this might help disburse the load required for peertube. What sites you read you host in return, very much like with bit torrent with a presentation layer tacked on top.
I think the cache would also have to partially be on phones. If users are to ‘pay’ for using the network by caching/redistributing part of it, since most people access the web from phones
Yeah viewing devices would all have to share hosting duties. I’m sure it could work, and popular/viral videos would serve well as the demand would be spread across the most devices as well.
There would still have to be dedicated seed servers for long tail content though I imagine.
Also tiktok really only makes sense with a big algorithm knowing what users want to see. Even if you were to follow many people, with the average video being only about 30 seconds long you won’t have much content to enjoy. The whole short form video thing is kinda built on knowing what your user likes and doesn’t. I don’t know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
I don’t know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
Yes, yes you could.
Companies like Google have successfully brainwashed us into believing that algorithms like this can only work on their server farms. The only reason those werver farms are necessary is becauwe they’re processing data for millions of people.
We forget that in each of our hands we hold a device that is 5,000 x more powerful than a 1985 CRAY-2, at the time the world’s fastest supercomputer. And let’s not forget our home desktops and laptops, which are several times more powerful that that.
We each have devices with persistent internet connections that could be at work scanning, categorizing, and filtering personalized content for each of us, without giving any privacy away. It’s only because we’ve been conditioned to be dependent on having our data centrally processed that we believe that’s the only way.
Note, it is more efficient to process content centrally, where the data is stored. However, generalized categorization and content tagging with robust metadata and standardized APIs would address the efficiency. Given companies are unlikely to do this and scupper their own surveillance revenue, the next best thing is local, privacy-respecting, smart content filtering assistants.
Those sound like good ideas in theory, but your phone’s battery would last about 2 hours if you did this.
The heavy lifting, like tagging the content of millions of videos probably needs to be done somewhere other than the end-user’s mobile device. Some sorting and filtering of text-based metadata on the user’s device to pick what videos to see next is viable though.
Algorithm doesn’t have to be a secret engagement sauce. It can just be based on an editable list of the user’s preferred tags and keywords with associated weights.
No need to get more complicated than that because you’re not trying to juice their “engagement” since their are no ads to show them.
Although I’m not even sure if infinite shorts make sense without a company pulling the strings for their own motive. But maybe it’s just not my thing
There are hosting providers that offer unmetered bandwidth.
Sure, setup complexity is higher, but it is definitely doable.
I have thought about such a project as I also have access to relatively inexpensive 20gbps fiber, but lack the funding currently to do it.
Maybe one day…
This is why I expect the video side of things to be more on the level of stream channels that self-host content with subscriptions for access to VoDs, rather than singular big platforms. Streaming in of itself is a lot of traffic too, but you have much bigger RoI per bandwidth spent with live viewers, and you cut down the storage requirements with limited VoD access too.
The only problem then becomes discovering these channels from the rest of the federated space, but honestly, either that will be a problem that will be solved by the space in a more general manner (oooh, imagine the return of web rings! Lol) or… It will end up being an issue that doesn’t matter. Like right now, still coming from video games, MinnMax and Second Wind are two creator-owned platforms that appear to be relatively unpopular, with short amount of thousands of views, except they run off of donations on Patreons and the viewers they do have keep them afloat with a good decent margin.
Same with Instagram. I’m a performer and rely on it for outreach and promotion but absolutely HATE the platform to no end. And this is a common sentiment among all performers. It is a garbage platform that comforts Nazis and pedophiles but bans the hashtag #horror and puts your account in jail for using it.
Unfortunately, PixelFed has almost no one on it and reaching a local audience is impossible, so there’s no point in switching. We have to go where the people are :(
Letterboxed - an app like bookwyrm, but for movies. I’ve seen other people talk about it and I think some people are working on it, but AFAIK nothing is up atm
Disqus. Would be great to add federated comments to any news, blog or static site.
There’s already a way to do this using Mastodon and a bit of Javascript. I use that on my flashlight review website and also link the comments to !flashlight@lemmy.world.
It’s not as slick a UX as Disqus of course, and it would be cool if somebody made that.
It’s hacky and not something a professional site would use. Cannot moderate comments for example.
I certainly can moderate comments; I am the admin of the Mastodon server in question.
What wouldn’t work so well is to host comments on someone else’s Mastodon server, so it’s not a good fit for a low-tech/low-overhead site. There’s definitely a space for something with a lower barrier to entry, but I don’t think it fits well with the nonprofit, community-oriented approach to servers running most of the fediverse. Those users would be best served by a commercial subscription service.
I remember last time I seen something like this it ended up just being full of nazis jerking each other off. Granted it was a pretty neoliberal app so that might have had a lot to do with it, but still, giving every website a news comment section isn’t really that great of an idea in retrospect.
I don’t feel like Twitch / livestreaming is well-supported yet (OwnCast is sort of a different approach to it)
edit: TikTok also is a livestreaming platform
