Hot take: Most PeerTube instances shouldn’t just hand out accounts to anyone—and here’s the reality check. Running a PeerTube server isn’t like YouTube. There’s no trillion-dollar corporation footing the bill. Instead, small community admins juggle:
The major points are:
- Storage costs (video files add up fast!)
- Moderation work (spam, trolls, and legal risks)
- Bandwidth limits
- Abuse handling (because yes, people will test boundaries) Yet, a lot of sign-up requests sound like (at least from what I see on my instance):
“I wanna upload videos.” “I’m starting a Roblox channel.”
Sorry, but that’s not enough. Admins aren’t obligated to give free hosting to strangers. A good admin looks for people who:
- Fit the community’s vibe (e.g., a coding-focused instance won’t host gaming streams).
- Show effort—like sharing a portfolio or explaining why their content adds value.
Example: If you applied with a sample of your work or a clear plan? Hell yes, I’d consider you. But if your pitch is just “I want free hosting,” why should the community foot the bill?
TL;DR: PeerTube isn’t a free-for-all. “I just wanna upload stuff” isn’t a good reason. Bring something to the table.
Wouldn’t you need to use PeerTube to discover and search for content? So you have would to go back and forth between PeerTube and Mastodon.
So obviously, if you just want to consume videos, it’s the best experience to use PeerTube.
Not necessarily. You can search and subscribe to peertube channels and get notified about new videos on mastodon. All this stuff is new and massively underfunded so of course comparing it to billion dollar projects is naive.
I I don’t want to use Mastodon like I don’t want to use Twitter then that’s an extra step that would better to not have.
Well, you dont have to. Just make an account on some peertube server and be done with it?
But so many instances don’t allow signups
Yes, and? We discussed the reasons and different ways to work around it. There are places you can register at though.