In my experience, occasionally watching videos its almost the exact same.

   1. You send me a peertube -- any peertube URL
   2. I load that page in my browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Android, iPhone, Desktop, anything)
   3. I watch the video

I'm not sure what the peertube mobile compatibility is like but newpipe supports it and i assume modern mobile browsers work.

And how much did the owner of the video earn from that link?

YouTube is not popular because it's easy for YOU, it's popular because the creator can get money for a video with a few clicks while Google manages ad contracts, bidding and infrastructure to make the money making happen.

PeerTube doesn't give you that.

Many youtubers simply incorporate an advertisement in their video in agreement with some company. Has been working for many years already.

There's a huge jumpgap between "click there to monetize video" and finding + negotiating a sponsorship contract with a partner.

You hid giant amount of work behind that "simply".

To be fair, the tax policies that triggered this discussion wouldn't apply in that case.

Couldn't the creator deploy AdSense or another ad-based video monetization tool on their site? https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1705822?hl=en Or am I misunderstanding how PeerTube works?

Agreed, but I get the feeling that many people here are fervent believers that adtech doesn't work/shouldn't exist, etc... so they tend to gloss over just how important monetization is.

There is nothing with the distributive power and monetization potential like YouTube.

It's exactly the same? Activitypub just changes the way subscriptions work.