That would probably depend on the instance creators. Donations are paying the way so far, but maybe someone will test out an instance with a registration fee or something. I don’t see that working out unless every other instance is in dire straits and super unstable because they’re running out of money.
This is why I like SomethingAwful forums too. Open since 1999 and an account costs $10. Just a little barrier to entry keeps out the worst people and trolls help fund the site by reregistering!
It’s not an alternate way to view Youtube, it’s a totally separate service. You’re not missing anything, if no one’s using it to post content, then there’s no content. Youtube is a tough one to compete with because the infrastructure needed to host that much data and distribute it is insane. Peertube is super niche and not many know about it, but I do wonder how fast scaling would become a problem if it suddenly got an influx of new users.
How does that work here anyway? Is there a FAQ or something to explain? Do downvoted comments get hidden or pushed down?
But it’s not usually the people running the platform doing that. You can also find instances that go full on 4chan style freeze peach and only delete explicitly illegal stuff, but most of those are probably defederated from the big instances by now.
I sort of feel that way. I don’t think I’m losing skill so much as not wanting to spend more than 3 minutes thinking about a problem.