this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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Peertube

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A free software to take back control of your videos

Peertube is an open, federated alternative to Youtube without advertising or tracking. On this site, you can find a good Peertube instance, with good rules, good moderation and most importantly a friendly community.

https://joinpeertube.org/

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I had this idea, because I was wondering if means.tv or nebula.tv could be made part of the peertube network. These two streaming platforms are paywalled, so it seems like it would not be possible. I don't use peertube, and I don't really know anything about it, so excuse my ignorance if the answer seems painfully obvious to you.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I’m no PeerTube expert, but I don’t see how federation and paywalls can mix. If the content on your paywalled instance is federated with non-paywalled instances, why would anyone pay for access to your instance? It would have to be a “walled garden” of paywalled instances that only peer with each other and have some kind of revenue sharing, which doesn’t sound realistic.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think there is a plugin available for that, it clashes a bit with the Free Culture idea behind Peertube... But there is a visibility setting for videos. You can protect them with a password and give that to paying subscribers. Or set videos as "unlisted" and sell the links on another platform. Or set them to "internal" and sell accounts for your instance.

[–] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago

I guess the last option you give is essentially what means and nebula do really.

[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 2 points 1 week ago

I do something similar to it and it works OK, even though not amazing. I think a lot of schools and organizations do that also.

I upload the videos which should only be available ta a small group which I manage on my instance and mark them as internal. This way users on my instance can watch them but the public on the internet can't.

You could make a user for people who played a subscription fee only in that case.

Why I say it works OK and not great is because then federation doesn't work and you would need a new user on each instance you pay for.

[–] 7uWqKj@lemmy.world -2 points 3 weeks ago