this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
219 points (99.5% liked)

Technology

37699 readers
352 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 113 points 1 week ago (6 children)

The Pixelfed guy does good work, but video hosting/streaming is the most difficult use-case to compete in due to infrastructure costs; I'm interested to see how he's planning to handle this and I wish him luck.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Also there is no casino algorithm showing you what big data knows will make you stay for a while.

In TikTok or instagram reels, you don't follow people you like. You just watch stuff happening.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

In TikTok or instagram reels, you don’t follow people you like. You just watch stuff happening.

That's actually the whole point of TikTok, what made it different when it started. An app for short videos where you follow people you like is more of a Snapchat competitor, not TikTok.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think that pixelfed guy has a big problem with commitment, he has so many unfinished/unpolished projects, and he'd be able to do so much more if he wasn't starting something new every other month.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah okay, so it sounds like he's the kind of guy who'll build a framework, or most of it, and won't ever really become capable of hosting a lot of videos at a watchable quality.

Technically he'll probably have built something basically functional the community could rally behind and get going. But that won't happen, because the people who care about the Fediverse are few, insufficiently resourceful, and most importantly don't care about shorts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Not at all, Pixelfed is very polished and gets regular updates.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

he mentioned in the past that the videos will be automatically deleted after some period of time, so that should make the storage situation a little bit more manageable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How ephemeral.

I can't wait for it to be used for important long term information.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Important long term storage in short video clips?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

It seems to be what's popular these days

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I think federated non-profit video platforms won't work on large scale without P2P.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think streaming works best where people self host their own media tbf.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Self hosting isn't really compatible with viral content, you do something that blows up and either get the hug of death or go bankrupt from the bandwidth costs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

this is what peertube tries to fix: everyone watching a peertube video (by default) will help server the data to other watching, so instead of the server needing to send all the data the viewers share the load.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Maybe the problem in that equation is the expectation of virality and not self hosting?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It doesn't matter if virality is the goal, unless you're suggesting it be actively prevented, virality is just a natural phenomenon of the internet. The term viral generally implies uncontrolled exponential spread. To this day, stuff goes viral without people intending it to.

And if you architect the system to scale a p2p network proportional to virality (ex. as people share it, they also self-host) you run into a ton of security and abuse challenges. We're also stretching the definition of "self-hosting" at this point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Self hosting isn't really compatible with viral content

The post I was replying to claimed virality and self hosting are at odds with one another because it causes skyrocketing expense. My point was that maybe someone selfhosting a server in the fediverse is not as interested in virality. And I doubt even the most viral posts in the fediverse would break the bank of a selfhoster

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

And my point was directly in response to your point.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

We are talking about a TikTok alternative. If getting as many people as possible to see your stuff isn't your goal, then why would you post it in the first place?
Making your content go viral is pretty much literally the only point.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Virality is nowhere near the only reason for posting videos. People post them to make jokes, teach something, reply to someone else, etc, or all the same reasons someone might make a blogpost or a post on a link aggregator.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There is no such thing as a form of media that is only applicable to a specific scale of use. Long form and short form media is useful to large and small groups.

For example, my partner coaches high school policy debate, which has long form video training content, short form content (30 seconds - 5 minutes) like clips from tournament rounds or practices, for recruitment, and very short form (1 - 30 second) clips that are mostly memes.

Their shorter form content is explicitly meant not to be viral, it's purely for their school, and other kids in their debate league. Most of it's not even parsable by non-debaters. It's only useful to their small community, but that's what they want.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Reminds me of the time somebody namedropped a hobbyist's project on prime time national radio in the UK. Their project was a train timetable tracker website, made because the official resource didn't work too well. The site went down nearly instantly 🤣

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I signed up and never got the verification email. It happened to basically everyone else that signed up too. Weird. Looks like the “official launch” was actually the “beginning of beta test”, weird how they marketed it as an “official launch”.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

the creator delayed the launch because he had to write the legalese for the service, and on top of that I think he's waiting for the app stores to approve the app (the service isn't available through a browser).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Theres no web app? That seems short sighted. You apparently cant access anything without logging either. I dont expect these shorts to get much viewership if you have to register and download an app to see anything. It also doesnt seem in the spirit of the fediverse

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I doubt that. From what he said somewhere on Pixelfed, the beta is only on Android right now and you don't need approval to publish something on the Play Store. From personal experience, apps appear within a couple of minutes. On iOS, the usual approval time would be 3-4 days.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You definitely need approval to publish on the Play Store. It's just more basic

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Ah alright, then they must have changed it since I last added a new app. The last few years I just published updates and they all went through almost immediately.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I thought that what he literally called it. Public Beta

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Isn't "soft launch" the usual term for this?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago

no actual product available, lets spam it everywhere. awesome.

hard not to feel like someone isnt countin eggs as chickens here

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can’t wait for federated LinkedIn and indeed next.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Oh no, not sure I want that.

The reason I'm not sure, is because I woke up at 5 am to do my morning run while making cold calls and preparing to open another business because my baby was born 2 hours before and taught me about B2B marketing in AI powered age.

If you want to hear more, hit me up with a DM!

Tap for spoilercontext: [email protected] for those that don't get the reference.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

You heard them, you're in charge of video hosting now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

I'm fine with it, if its not invasive in privacy and does not collect all the information. And if its a bit better moderated.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hmm, they managed to get on techcrunch. Impressive. So many little fediverse projects just don't.

Loops is not yet open sourced, nor has it completed its integration with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, and other federated apps.

Ah, it's a startup with a hypeman budget that might federate, that's why.

Edit: Although it's by the Pixelfed guy and run by donation?

[–] maniacalmanicmania 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I hope that floating navbar style doesn't become mainstream. Distracting to the point of making me sick.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

I don't have TikTok myself but having seen my friends show videos from their screen I think it's absolutely hideous how half of the video is covered with comments and buttons and shit. That would be a total dealbreaker for me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What's next? Fediverse Amazon?

Just stop 😂

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A decentralized marketplace would honestly be pretty sick as long as they can figure out how to ensure people don't't get scammed

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

"Sick" as in "slick?" "Good?" (Going to add "clueless oldster" to the description on my BH profile page).

Along the lines of a "Fediverse Amazon", @[email protected] told me about flohmarkt, which does look interesting. One of its instances can be viewed here.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Sick mean cool or awesome. I guess

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

One note on "sick" being slang for "good": that particular slang started in the 80s, and some of the younger generation consider it to be old person slang.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

So I'm even older than I thought?! 😱

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

IMO we need to break it in a few independent but cooperating decentralized systems;

  1. A transportation service where consumers will request the transportation of goods or people from point A to point B, and providers will make bids for those requests.
  2. A storage service where providers will offer storage of goods at specific locations, and consumers that make requests for the storage.
  3. A LC service, where two parties can enter an letter-of-credit (LC) contract, and providers can guarantee the contract.

If these systems are available, it would be possible to implement additional decentralized services like;

  • Marketplaces.
  • Passenger transportation services.
  • Food delivery.
  • Probably many more.
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why? Is it bad providing alternatives? Especially as it is Fediverse based, which is federated and not controlled by a single company. And being compatible to Fediverse protocol means you can use any application.

Imagine something like Amazon, a central place you go and everyone who federates with it can sell products. I'm not against it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] NigelFrobisher 6 points 1 week ago

Suspicious use of “competitor” is suspicious.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

This is lovely, even though I’m absolutely not interested.

load more comments
view more: next ›