A Watch-Only PeerTube instance would:
Allow users to create accounts, subscribe, like, comment, make playlists, and follow channels.
Not allow local video uploads or creators (no hosting load on the server).
Instead, it would simply fetch and display videos hosted across the wider PeerTube federation.
This would effectively create a “viewing portal” into PeerTube, without the cost and complexity of maintaining video storage.
Why this matters
Lower hosting barrier: An instance like this would cost far less to operate (no need to handle uploads and storage).
Accessibility for non-technical users: People who just want to watch and explore PeerTube without understanding federation or instance selection could have an easy entry point.
Appeal to older or casual users: A single, simple, “official-looking” watch-only portal would help people who might find the federated model confusing.
Good for outreach and discovery: Similar to how Mastodon has mastodon.social or Lemmy has lemmy.world, PeerTube could have a recognizable “main” watch-only instance—maybe something like peertube.video.
Potential benefits
Easier onboarding: people just sign up and start watching.
A familiar alternative for those coming from YouTube, where uploading isn’t the main goal.
Could help spread awareness of PeerTube by being a more “mainstream-ready” entry point
Thoughts from someone who may not matter due to not being much of a “non-professional” video watcher (I’m one of those older & casual viewers, albeit slightly more technically knowledgeable than many of those you’re referring to):
If this achieves the success for PT that you hope for, the cost of being the gateway to that content would still become significant.
Not being a big video watcher, I don’t know if this actually is as much an issue as I seem to experience on Lemmy, but the slow loading of the list of available posts to view that I assume is endemic to how the Fediverse works may prevent this from taking off among the casual YT viewers you’re looking to hook. Well-done caching strategies may help minimize this, but now we’re increasing the costs of running the gateway again.
Eventually some small portion of those users may want to be able to upload videos while also having them tied to their account’s activity history (comments, public playlists, etc.), and will be put off by the fact they can’t. What then?
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea per se - I could certainly see myself going for it since I’m unlikely to ever want to upload videos to share with the world at large - but if you’re going to make yourself the public face of PT, and yet prevent some of its functionality then you might just wind up damaging the brand you’re trying to promote.
One way out I can see is to make uploading a paid feature rather than preventing it entirely. I know that theoretically goes against the desired appearance of “openness” in the platform, but the costs are a reality that can’t be denied, and shouldn’t really be a major stumbling block if kept as reasonable/cheap as possible. Those who philosophically are against it (or just can’t afford it) can still make accounts elsewhere that they can refer their followers (if you support such a feature) to.
Just my somewhat uninformed two cents.