(this is a technical workaround I just found. But it’s also related to what we’re discussing)
Peertube workaround - How to to subscribe to channels on non-federated instances
You can subscribe to channels (not users) on Peertube instances not followed or following your own instance. Let’s say you have a videos.scanlines.xyz account:
- on a Peertube instance currently NOT followed by videos.scanlines.xyz, find a channel you want to subscribe to
- open a video in that channel, click the ‘Share’ button
- copy the resulting URL and and paste it into the Search field of your own instance
- in the Search results, click on the video
- the video from the remote instance now opens inside videos.scanlines.xyz, and finally you can click ‘Subscribe’