2021-08-25
LBRY is a new protocol that allows people to build apps on the top of it which then can interact with the contents available on the LBRY network. LBRY allows the creators to set a price for the stream (Like I-tunes) or give out the video for free (like YouTube). You can publish any kind of file such as video, audio, text, documents, etc. It uses Blockchain technology for the creation of databases on the network.
The monetization scheme for content on the LBRY protocol is also based on the Blockchain technology developed by the creator of Bitcoin. Unlike YouTube that serves you ads for monetization LBRY lets people themselves interact with the creators by giving them the ability to treat creators in the form of cryptocurrency (LBC) .
Almost all the tech giants today are centralized services that sells user's personal information and attention to advertisers. But LBRY is a protocol making it a decentralized option for publishing contents. Since it's decentralized it means that the content and your privacy is owned by you, not the tech giants whose service you use.
Blockchain technology like Bitcoin and LBRY enables people to create databases that no single entity controls.
With Bitcoin, when you send money to someone, your computer broadcasts "hey, the person with this particular private key is sending money to that person over there" to the network, and the mining algorithm ensures everyone agrees that indeed, you sent that money, so your balance goes down and the recipient's goes up.
In LBRY, the same mechanism is used to store an index of what content is available and how to download it, as well as financial transactions (such as tips, and purchases of paid content) using the Bitcoin-like currency LBC (LBRY Credits). When a creator publishes something on LBRY, an entry is made on the LBRY blockchain. You can think of it as an announcement: hey everyone, I've published this file, here's some information about it, and instructions for how to download it from the peer-to-peer network.
Normally it is used as an alternative to YouTube. And mostly video files are uploaded. There even is a feature to sync videos from your YouTube account to LBRY. You can access the LBRY content via the following apps and websites: