Alright! It’s time to check in.
I checked back and I’ve been doing the self hosting of my videos on here for 10 MONTHS now. Time flies!
Admittedly the first few months through end of 2025 was all in Supporter Access via PeerTube and I’ve since shifted my policy to only public videos and self hosting more direct. I cancelled PeerTube hosting last month.
This means I’ve seen near zero real direct funding contributions through the forums here - but I’ve felt all kinds of good things regarding the ownership of my work and the “spark” sticking around more when making videos for the forums first.
But how are you all feeling about it? What’s working or not working? What’s sticking for you?
I think this forum is a great place to connect with others, and there’s no notable difference on the user end between self hosting or hosting through a service imo. It does feel more comforting and gives a sense of security knowing that it’s not some big company “owning” all my opinions and posts on the forum (if that makes sense lol).
You’re probably the one who notices the biggest difference. I think to you, self hosting everything gives a sense of freedom and control. You REALLY own all your video’s, posts etc. now, so I think that that’s the biggest difference.
Overall, being on this forum and being able to watch your video’s here has been a great experience to me. It is more effort to self host everything, but in the end it’s more rewarding as well. And as you mentioned, this place brings that kind of spark and therefore makes it more unique and fun.
I personally have really enjoyed it, as the videos serve as a conversation starter & forum thread themselves. Functionally, it’s nice to have a dedicated location for your content, and less at the whims of either algorithmic curation or seeking it out on the platform via subscriptions feed/page. I also think it’s nice in how it removes the necessity of feeling like you have to “play ball” to fit within the packaging YouTube demands, and the way that reflects to me as an end user is seeing the non-typical aspect ratios or lens effects that you’ve been filming with. Along with the shift in content coverage in general (although, that is less apparent to me as someone who is still relatively newer to your content as opposed to a long time watcher.) From my end, it feels like self hosting has removed a metaphorical weight off your shoulders, and has encouraged you to make more of the videos that you want to without concern of how they might impact the algorithm.
Ultimately, I also agree that there is no “real” difference in terms of the consumption as an end user, as hosting it elsewhere vs self hosting both net to me watching a video either which way. I do agree with Berrie’s statement that it does feel nice that this is off of Google’s platform, and feels like the community around the content is a lot more thoughtful & intentionally engaging with the content. But, you’re the one who’s going to feel the biggest difference. It just depends on if all that effort feels worth it to you in the end in what it gives you vs what it takes.
The videohub player gives some “unsupported format error” on firefox, but that’s a firefox issue, and they get posted to yt too so no big deal. Good vibes!
That’s odd, I run Zen and haven’t had issues myself. Not familiar with what is different between it and base Firefox, though. Sorry to hear it’s throwing issues for you :<
Firefox on my Mac hasn’t had issues, but the player doesn’t even show in Firefox on my Linux gaming desktop… huh
I can look into it. Might need to export a separate H264 copy (instead of HEVC) for the embeds, though not ideal.
I could also just embed both YouTube and the selfhosted copy in the same thread.
I agree with @Akino that posting the videos with their own threads serves as a great conversation starter! Commenters can continue meaningful discussion in dedicated threads in a way that doesn’t really work on Youtube.