I follow #FediLive, #Owncast and “PeerTube” on Mastodon and have noticed a surge of new streamers on both services over the last month or so and I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed this as well?
Most of all, I’m wondering why? Was there a decrease in server costs? Have they become easier to install? Maybe it’s just more people realizing that they even exists? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see this, I’m just curious as to why it seems to be happening in such a dense amount of time?
I think there’s also a big shift in people (in this case the viewers) being more willing to consume content from someone on a different platform they’re used to.
For a long time, YouTube, Twitch and TikTok were mostly good to their users. If you weren’t on one of those platforms they weren’t even willing to watch you, because they couldn’t use their Twitch emotes and shit, you’re the “weird guy that just have to use the shitty platform”.
And then they all enshittified, causing people to be increasingly more aware of the existance of the alternatives, but most importantly willing to use them when they encounter them. Now when you see a PeerTube link, you don’t think “slow and always buffering”, you think “oh finally something not on YouTube with ads on top of the creator’s Brilliant/Manscaped/$foodDelivery/$sketchyEnergyDrink. Now you see a PeerTube link and it’s like " yay it’ll just work even with my VPN on and ad blocker”.
That makes it viable for creators to even try to use those services. The enshittification is so bad, it’s worth paying for the platform you broadcast on, manage your own sponsors and ads. Manage it like a real business, be independent.
People are mass switching to Bluesky and Mastodon, people are willing to try and accept alternatives, and aware of the importance of competition and independence.