Ooh. I've been waiting for something like this for damn near two decades. It was the original promise of the internet: free and open access to all information, regardless of whether that makes people uncomfortable. And this protocol even gives you control over monetization options.

Still, they have a big hurdle. It all comes down to whether it'll be adopted.

First impressions of the MacOS app: Loading time was long, but onboarding was effortless. Threw me right into the app.

Immense disappointment when I realized it was for video, not books.

Gave a video a try, "A better way to split firewood."

Since there's no URL bar, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to link someone to a video.

But! There's a web version: https://odysee.com/@SicCooper:1/3d-all-stars-super-mario-64-...

Seems like... youtube. Hmmm.

First impressions are ... surprisingly positive. This is somehow an almost-complete, fully working clone of Youtube. There are missing features, but I can look past that.

The recommendation engine is obviously the biggest weakness, since there's probably not much content to recommend. But I found myself watching https://odysee.com/@atthespeedoflife:b/it-may-not-be-adhd-pa...

Pleasantly surprised to find a 2x speed setting. The production quality of the video is good too. No problems whatsoever.

This got me curious: How hard would it be to set up my own channel? So I clicked sign in, and was delighted to discover they have a "sync my youtube" checkbox.

... Unfortunately, after creating my account, there's no sign of where the "Sync my youtube" feature went to. I checked the box, but there wasn't any prompt or further info. Well, back to watching.

The production quality on these videos is actually incredible. This one has 6 views: https://odysee.com/@AlphaPhoenix:f/why-are-metals-so-stretch...

"Why are metals so stretchy?"

I got a bit suspicious, so I checked youtube. Yep, it's on there too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn1Y6zIS91g&ab_channel=Alpha...

They have 14k subscribers, which isn't huge, but is significantly greater than "nothing." Did LBRY somehow convince people to sign up and cross-post their videos, or are they simply hosting random videos? Now I'm curious where it's hosted.

This is interesting enough to give a fair shot. I'll be watching it closely.

Their FAQ is a solid resource: https://lbry.com/faq

I'm mostly curious how they pulled off a fully-working clone of YouTube. That's an incredible achievement, setting aside all the questions it raises.

I see that Google banned them, which honestly makes me want to support LBRY more. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594663