LBRY & Odysee – The Future Of Free Thoughts & Ideas

March 21, 2021

by CCM

LBRY & Odysee – The Future Of Free Thoughts & Ideas

Last updated on September 9th, 2022 at 09:33 am

NFT - Everydays First 5000 Days by Beeple

Art is one of those things that has maintained an ever-lasting presence throughout human history. If you try tracking human history — from 36,000 years ago to this day, art has constantly been there.

From cave paintings of buffalos to the most recent photoshopped sunset for Instagram, we have been trying to capture images for ages. The same is true with music, wooden carvings, stone figurines and more.

Let’s think about more modern types of art…

These days, it seems like every person walking the streets has a cell phone. This means that every good, bad or ugly thing is instantly recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

Thanks to modern technology, these videos can not only be streamed live to a platform like YouTube, but with the latest editing software, ‘the sky’s the limit’ as to what you can post.

Thanks to the internet, art in all its forms, is shared more easily than ever. Only a few decades ago, art existed in nearly all forms in which it does today. However, distributing it was much more difficult. Whether you used vinyl, tapes or CDs, you still needed hardware to share it around.

Thanks to technology, this is no longer the case today.

As we all know, art can be shared as data now, which can be stored online in the forms of 1s and 0s. Even more importantly perhaps, this art, in all its forms can not only be stored on the web, but it can be shared with family, friends or frankly anyone across the globe.

This all sounds amazing right?

This all sounds like something my elementary school aged grandchildren can do, honestly, even better than their parents!

Right now you might be asking yourself… what does this have to do with cryptocurrency?

A fair question… let’s start to bring that into perspective…

Modern technology is great. It helps us organize our lives, keeps us in contact with each other at the push of a button, allows us to share our thoughts, experiences and feelings with people around the world in real time…

And… with this technology also comes NFTs (Non-fungable tokens), which thanks to blockchain, makes it possible to not only sell art, but pieces of art, property, tweets… the possibilities are endless.

But, the discussion about NFTs is for another post…

However, as helpful as technology can be, it can also be a double-edged sword.

Inherently, technology is neither good nor bad, it is how that technology is put to use that is good or bad.

Couple that with the fact that who controls the technology matters.

If a particular type of technology is controlled by a centralized entity, like YouTube or other various social media platforms… that leaves open the opportunity to silence voices with opinions that you may not agree with.

Now some people may think that this totalitarian level of control is fine… that is until it’s their voice that gets silenced.

Censorship Of Ideas & Speech

While censorship of ideas, speech and truth is not a new concept and has certainly been used by many a government and dictator since practically the beginning of time, in recent years it has taken on a whole new meaning.

Major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to name but a few, have become an integral part of just about every person’s life. We depend on them to get information, stay in touch with family and friends, get the news and so much more.

However, it has become apparent in recent times that social media platforms have been waging a censorship war against its users and even major political figures and businesses it disagrees with.

This has been vividly evident in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election and of course with information relating to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

These social media giants have deleted information from users that IT DEEMS INAPPROPRIATE.

Who the hell are they?

Who made them the arbiters of ‘truth?’

The answer to that question is quite simple… THEY DID!

They impose their forms of censorship by using ‘fact checkers’ who are not often correct and their justification is that they do it to ‘protect their users.’

Looking for some hypocrisy?

Here is the biggest lie they don’t tell you, they fail to ‘protect their users’ as they harvest your information and sell it to the highest bidder.

No… we are not kidding… you can read more about that type of activity here.

That of course leads many people to have concerns for their privacy while online. If you feel this way, you’re not alone, read about a survey that reveals that many online users are concerned for their privacy here.

Defending Free Expression

Now, we will be the first to admit that there are definitely things that people post online which we, and probably most people of common sense, would deem wholly inappropriate.

That being said, there needs to be a balance between what is considered appropriate and a person’s right to free speech… perhaps even one that is weighted in favor of the individual’s freedom of speech and whatever he/she is posting for information, pictures or art.

Unfortunately however, as long as these platforms are designed and controlled by a centralized entity, there will ALWAYS be censorship in one form or another.

So what options do ‘we the people’ have to stop our views from being wiped off the internet?

For the first time in history, the average person has the ability to speak ‘their truth’ and not have it censored by some arbitrary individual at a big company. These avenues come in the form of decentralized, blockchain based platforms.

We need to start using decentralized platforms.

There are several out there currently. Some operate better than others. But, most, if not all, use some form of blockchain technology.

Why blockchain?

A sufficiently decentralized blockchain is censorship resistant and immutable.

In a nut shell, this means that once something is posted on a blockchain, it cannot be removed or altered… and if the blockchain is a public one, whatever is posted is there for everyone who wants to see it.

Learn More About Blockchain Here

Enter LBRY & Odysee

Blockchain technology in its current form provides the ability to ensure many things… not the least of which is a person’s right to be able to speak their mind and not have it censored… but rather, to have their idea consumed by the people of the world and they decide, by their response to it, if it is worthy information.

This revolutionary concept can be taken even further, thanks to projects like LBRY.

What is LBRY?

LBRY is a blockchain based, censorship resistant, file sharing site.

That’s a mouthful…

Let’s take a closer look…

For a lot of people, LBRY is a place where they can share their own photos, videos, texts, ebooks, music and more. Let’s not forget, it will also provide a great repository of information that has the ability to dwarf any of the current centralized entities.

Consider if you will, how YouTube has grown to become a go-to place for videos and music… and as of the writing of this post, the second largest search engine in the world.

Now consider a platform or an app that is just as popular, but for any kind of art there is. LBRY’s goal is to become the largest digital library in the world. But more than that, they want to provide anyone across the globe the ability to access LBRY at any time and on any of their devices.

That is what LBRY wishes to become.

It almost sounds grandiose…

However, it may just be possible… to quote Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.”

Build it they are… LBRY is the first digital marketplace that is not controlled by a major corporation or centralized entity, like YouTube or Google.

Instead, it is maintained by its own participants, its own community… and because of this it has the ability to grow to staggering levels. Moreover, as a byproduct of this growth, comes censorship resistance… the people, the community decide what they want to see and what they don’t.

But wait… there’s more…

Few would argue that YouTube is now the largest video platform on the internet. So, it is the go to place for videos of all kinds, for all needs.

Imagine if you will… a decentralized platform that has the same look and feel…

Welcome to Odysee.

Odysee was created by the same folks who gave us LBRY. It has a similar look, feel and functionality as YouTube, but on the blockchain.

Finally… we as a society have options…

This is the power of the blockchain. It provides much needed decentralization while stripping power from any one person, group or corporation and gives it back to the people.

However, as great as this may sound… this is still not providing you with the full picture of what LBRY & Odysee aim to be.

You see, because LBRY & Odysee are projects based on blockchain technology, it can do many things that these centralized entities can’t or perhaps are unwilling to do.

The LBRY & Odysee Difference

So what sets LBRY & Odysee apart from any of the other similar platforms that already exist?

Well, the first thing to understand is that LBRY & Odysee are a protocol.

We know, we know… what is a protocol?

In the most broad definition, a protocol in tech is a set of rules that allows electronic devices to communicate with each other. These rules define the type of information to be transferred, the language to be used and so much more.

Now you might be asking, so what?

We get it… tech… tech… tech…

We’re not going to get into the tech side of this here… but take the proper protocol, combine it with blockchain technology and now you have endless possibilities.

So, for a platform like LBRY, a content creator or artist can not only create their work and upload it, but they can even have the ability to set a price per download or stream… they can choose to remove any price tags and share their content for free… they can sell the rights to their origninated content…

Do you see the difference?

Choice & freedom… choice & freedom are the difference.

All of this on a blockchain… so it is censorship resistant… imagine that!

Migrating YouTube Videos To LBRY

Right now you might be thinking… “but, I already have videos on YouTube.”

We understand… YouTube has been around significantly longer… it is where most people go for loading and watching video.

But LBRY give YouTube creators the ability to like their YouTube account and easily transfer all of their previously created video content.

Oh, and bonus… once you complete that process, every time you upload a video to YouTube, it automatically gets uploaded to LBRY.

Wait, there’s more… once your video is uploaded to LBRY, it automatically gets loaded to your Odysee channel once you set it up.

Want to skip YouTube and load directly to LBRY or Odysee?

No problem… both platforms have options for you to load content directly.

One of the best features of YouTube, or at least until some of the recent changes, used to be the fact that you could monetize your YouTube channel and earn a revenue stream from posting engaging content.

No worries, LBRY and Odysee have go you covered.

Frankly, in many ways, it’s a better way… let’s take a look…

Let’s start with moving from YouTube to LBRY…

All of the work you’ve already done is not in vain. Once you sync your YouTube channel with LBRY you can start earning in the form of LBRY Credits (LBC).

Depending on the number of subscribers that you have, you can qualify for different grants of LBC.

As of the writing of this article, here’s the breakdown:

For having 1,000 subscribers, you become eligible for 1,080 LBC per year, which is about $200 at current prices. The complete list goes like this:

1,000 1,080 LBC

10,000 6,000 LBC

50,000 12,600 LBC

100,000 20,400 LBC

500,000 40,800 LBC

1,000,000 75,600 LBC

As great as this initial amount is, couple that with the fact that once you create your LBRY and Odysee.tv account, you can receive between 1-4 LBC per view. This will be a huge incentive as the price of LBC continues to increase.