**TILvids 2023: Musings for a New Year** What a crazy year 2022 has been for tech. As we approached the last few weeks of the year, I kept thinking how *different* this year has felt. For most of the last two decades, it's seemed like the trajectory of the tech industry has been very much on the rails; processors get faster, devices get both smaller and more powerful, everything moves to the web or mobile, and a handful of very large tech companies are adored by both Wall Street and main street alike. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google...we even came up with an acronym for them, "FAANG". But something happened over the last year or two: Many of these companies started to stumble. Facebook's user-base declined for the first time ever, sending their CEO on a Quixotic mission to find "the next big thing". Netflix is finding itself struggling in a rapidly competitive space. And Google continues its mission to eventually convert every service it has into a canceled messaging app. And then there's Twitter. Up until this year, Twitter just sort of...existed. It was ubiquitously uninteresting, somehow simultaneously both important and irrelevant. Then [Elon Musk took it over](https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-where-did-tweeters-go-twitter-is-losing-its-most-active-users-internal-2022-10-25/) and disrupted it in about the worst (or best, depending on your perspective) way possible. Throughout all of these developments, it's felt very hard to see where the trajectory of tech is going. What does the next ten years look like, if all of these infallible institutions are failing? Right about now, you're probably saying to yourself, "All of this tracks, but what does it have to do with TILvids?" Which is a fair question, and one I've had to ponder myself lately. You see, originally I started TILvids, this PeerTube instance, as a reaction to being disillusioned with YouTube. I had been making content since 2007 for the platform, and while it once seemed so exciting to make niche content that could get tens of thousands of views just because other people cared about it, that feeling had largely disappeared by the time I stopped actively creating for the platform in 2017. I was tired of having to alter my content just to chase a constantly-shifting algorithm in order to get views. I just wanted to make the videos I wanted to make, find the people who used to enjoy that content, and share it with them. It really felt like I lost my friends, and they had been replaced by an uncaring AI that was optimized for something I actively despised. So I started TILvids, as a way to go in a different direction. I love making and watching edutainment content, and that's why I made that the focus of our instance. But along the way, it's become more than that. I didn't have any notion of decentralization when I started TILvids, I just wanted to build a place that reflected what I loved. But as I've watched what is happening to the tech industry over the last year, it finally feels like I can sense where things are headed. We're going to [make the Internet weird again.](https://jarredsumner.com/codeblog/) I grew up alongside the rise of the Internet. I remember web rings being the only way to discover content you were interested in. I remember downloading RealPlayer video files from random websites to watch South Park. I remember hopping on various IRC channels to talk to people. I remember the rise of Napster and feeling like "we the people" were collectively building something truly new. And then everything started to change. Ads became a thing. The "weirdness" of the Internet was sanitized and scrubbed away. Google and Facebook, two scrappy startups, became so big and data-hungry that they knew everything about everyone, billions of us. It feels like it happened overnight, but really it took 15+ years of steady encroachment. And I don't want to completely disregard what they've done, because both companies have innovated, made some good products that people enjoy using, and the centralized nature of the companies certainly made it approachable. But the trade-offs were very large indeed, including all aspects of data privacy and control. But it feels like the tide is beginning to shift in a new direction. I've felt this before. I remember downloading MP3s and recording them out to a tape-deck so I could play my own mix-tapes in my car in the late-90s. I remember buying a Windows Mobile phone in the early 2000s just so that I could load old SNES ROMs onto it to play games. I remember when I canceled cable in 2007 because I was so certain that the future was streaming videos. All of those times, I could so confidently feel the direction of where technology was going, even when your average person on the street was barely aware of these ideas. And I feel that now too, with decentralization. All of us, on Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, Matrix, and other decentralized services can feel it. And even if the larger world has no idea what we're talking about right now, it doesn't matter, because the we're already on the inevitable path forward. The future of decentralized services is very bright, and I'm honored to be playing a role in pushing it forward. As we head into 2023, this is what I'm going to constantly run on loop in my head. As for [TILvids](https://tilvids.com), my plans for the community remain largely unchanged. The next year will look like: - Continue trying to recruit content creators to share with the community. - Work to scale the server(s). - Try to continue bringing in donations in order to keep finances under control. - Investigate and set goals for how to eventually transition the site into a community-run organization. Thank you so much for all of the continued support. I've said before what a lonely experience the first year of running the site was. Every week, more and more people are reaching out, watching videos and leaving comments, and talking with me and [providing ideas and feedback via Mastodon](https://mstdn.social/@tilvids). The fact that people care enough to engage means a lot, and as long as that holds true, I'm going to keep pushing forward. Happy New Year to us all!

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/1b4cf977-9dd1-4163-b900-888cb62e5839 > Learn how to create a Bitwarden account.

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/68fe75d8-8526-4200-9cdb-0b098b63251c > we return to say goodbye to an old friend...

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/d448aea9-97fe-4b4e-aec2-b62097e8f311 > See one man's prediction of what big cities might look like in 1950. From "Popular Science Monthly," Aug. 1925

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/90b99ea1-e30c-43af-be38-0442f23d19db

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/859b2d73-5552-4ac8-8b29-503bcbc9f5f5 > Hi, Help me by donating to my patreon: http://patreon.com/Vex0r

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/3270c827-3f00-467d-b6eb-0910f41e4d69

 Welcome to June 2022, TILvids community! Let’s take a look at what was happening at [TILvids](https://tilvids.com) over the last month: - After a couple of exciting months in server-admin-land, happy to have a relatively quiet month in May. Due to the upgrades and expansions made possible, I've been able to get back to pulling in content from creators that don't post themselves, but give us permission to re-post for them on TILvids. Hoping to keep that up a bit, to continue introducing great new content and creators to our community! - Big thanks to new TILvids patrons Separate Realities and Escovan! Donations from our patrons go directly to supporting and expanding our server, which lets us continue to add more creators and content to our community. If you'd like to donate to TILvids, [check out our Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/tilvids)! - I had a request to track some of the site stats. As of June 1st, 2022, we currently have 111,552 video views, 1,674 users, and 207GB of local videos. Here are a few thoughts for July: - I mentioned last month that with the migration of the site to a new host, we have seen some slowdowns for users in the western-hemisphere, and I was hoping to construct a pseudo-CDN by spinning up a mirror server in the western-hemisphere. Still no progress there, but would like to look into it when I get some time. - Please keep spreading the word about TILvids, especially to your favorite edutainment content creators! We are fortunate enough now to have a decently-sized community, which begins to start to be attractive to creators. This is such a far cry from where things started out almost two years ago. I can't say enough how much respect I have for our community, and how exciting it has been to watch it grow and develop! I've learned so much from all of this, and count TILvids as one of my joys in life. I think that's it for now! Thanks so much to everyone for continuing to watch, comment, share, and support the [TILvids](https://tilvids.com) community! ❤️

 Welcome to May 2022, TILvids community! Let’s take a look at what was happening at [TILvids](https://tilvids.com) over the last month: - If you'll remember [last month](https://blog.tilvids.com/TILvids-Update-April-2022/), I mentioned that we'd be looking to migrate to a new server host, and I'm happy to say that I was able to successfully perform the migration earlier this month. It wasn't without its hiccups; immediately upon pointing the DNS to the new site, I noticed a number of elements that I missed during the copy process. Oops. At any rate, with some help from the community, and with some late-night troubleshooting, everything was straightened out. This migration should help a lot to not only reduce costs a bit (at least for now), but will also give us more storage space, allowing for more content! The only major issue is that the server is hosted in Germany as opposed to Canada now, so streaming performance is a bit slower for our western-hemisphere users. More on that below... - A very happy welcome to new TILvids creator [Veronica Explains](https://tilvids.com/a/veronicaexplains)! We're excited and thankful to have new creators sharing with the TILvids community. Welcome aboard! - In case you missed it this month, with the announcement of [Elon Musk acquiring Twitter](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/twitter-reportedly-set-to-accept-elon-musks-offer-to-buy-the-company/), the Mastodon community saw [a large influx of new users](https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-get-started-on-mastodon-and-leave-twitter-behind). As supporters of the decentralized movement, this is fantastic news, and we were happy to see so many new users, and give a warm welcome to the many who [followed us on Mastodon](https://mstdn.social/web/@tilvids). A billionaire buying walled-garden social media communities isn't going to make the world a better place, that will only come from the decentralization of the Internet, so keep pushing! - I had a request to track some of the site stats. As of May 1st, 2022, we currently have 108,728 video views, 1,582 users, and 198GB of local videos. It's worth keeping in mind that many instances don't clear out the spam accounts, but I do try to keep on top of that, which is deflating our total number of users (but is, in my mind, very much worth it). Here are a few thoughts for June: - As mentioned above, with the migration of the site to a new host, we have seen some slowdowns for users in the western-hemisphere (though, happily, some speed *increases* for those in Europe). One thing I'd like to look into is building a pseudo-CDN by spinning up a mirror server in the western-hemisphere. I've done a few tests so far but haven't made any real progress. My hope is to continue working toward that going forward. I think that's it for now! Thanks so much to everyone for continuing to watch, comment, share, and support the [TILvids](https://tilvids.com) community! ❤️