LBRY as a Youtube Alternative

10 réponses [Dernière contribution]
davidpgil
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/26/2015

I have been following LBRY[1] since it came out in around 2015 and I believe it is now approacing a tipping point with its video content. May Youtubers are now mirroring their content on LBRY. Also it seems to be free software if I am not mistaken, under an MIT license[2]. It has a great deal of Linux based content on it as well. I think this may be THE alternative to look at going forward.

[1] https://lbry.tv/
[2] https://lbry.com/faq/is-lbry-open-source

loldier
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/17/2016

They have Comp Chronicles! Excellent quality, too.

https://open.lbry.com/@ComputerChronicles:f/Computer-Chronicles-02x07-UNIX-(1985)

chaosmonk

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Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/07/2017

The software itself is indeed under a free license, so you can modify it, compile it yourself, and run it without giving up any freedom, as long as you don't use it to watch videos or otherwise use the LBRY platform, at which point you need to agree with their Terms of Service[1], which you should read if you haven't already.

[1] https://lbry.com/termsofservice

PeerTube[2] is also a decentralized alternative to YouTube, but it has an advantage over LBRY, which is that it is also federated. This means, among other things, that if you do not want to agree to the Terms of Services of a particular PeerTube instance, you can choose another instance, or even create your own instance. Since PeerTube instances federate with each other, you can do this without losing access to the rest of PeerTube.

[2] https://joinpeertube.org/

PeerTube has another advantage, which is that it is funded by donations and only accountable to its users. LBRY on the other hand, is a for-profit crypto ponzi scheme. Its purpose is to lock people into a platform that uses their cryptocurrency (LBC) for payments, driving up the value of that currency in order to enrich the creators and early adopters.

loldier
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/17/2016

This is good to know. I would steer away.

davidpgil
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/26/2015

So, I have a sore spot about Peertube. I uploaded a bunch of videos and the admin of the instance accidentally deleted them, which was pretty upsetting. I think there needs to be a better structure to support what your average person would likely do with such a service. I'm also a bit spooked by decentralized software recently. I have noticed that in for instance Mastodon, in xyz instance if you do something that the admins personally doesnt like, they can just remove you and delete all of your posts. It doesnt have to be based off of laws or whatever, they can just remove you. This has happened to me in multiple instances. I now hate decentralized stuff because of how anarchistic it is.

I will look more closely at LBRYs licenses and see if I can ask them to be more Libre. They seem to be open minded about this type of thing.

chaosmonk

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A rejoint: 07/07/2017

> I uploaded a bunch of videos and the admin of the instance accidentally deleted them, which was pretty upsetting.

That sucks. Do you know whether it was due to a bug in ths software, or human error on the admin's part?

> I think there needs to be a better structure to support what your average person would likely do with such a service.

Can you be more specific? They are working on some usability issues as part of the v3 roadmap.[1] Does that address the problems you had, or did you run into different issues?

[1] https://joinpeertube.org/roadmap

> I have noticed that in for instance Mastodon, in xyz instance if you do something that the admins personally doesnt like, they can just remove you and delete all of your posts.

You should find an instance that is a good fit for you, or run your own. At least you have that option with federated platforms. I'm guessing that you haven't yet read LBRY's terms of service, because in using LBRY you have agreed that the company may do the exact thing you are worried about:

"Notwithstanding anything contained in these Terms, we reserve the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to terminate this agreement or suspend your right to access the Services... All rights and licenses granted to you under these Terms will immediately be revoked upon our termination of the agreement or our suspension of your access to the Services."

> I will look more closely at LBRYs licenses and see if I can ask them to be more Libre.

To be clear, the problem is with the license to their platform, not the licenses to their software. You could fork their software to create your own competing platform, but without the ability to federate with LBRY the way ActivityPub allows one to federate with Peertube, you would be isolated unless you can convince a large number of people to switch to your fork. Since that is not viable, the only way to use the LBRY software in a useful way is to agree to their terms of service. You should read the terms of service and react to them the same way you would if it were a software license.

chaosmonk

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A rejoint: 07/07/2017

> So, I have a sore spot about Peertube.

Sorry if my reply came cross as dismissive of your experience with Peertube. Data loss is serious, and the admin screwed up big either by not properly managing their instance or, if the software and/or server was not yet production-ready at the time, by not adequately communicating this.

As for Mastodon, the fediverse in general has some issues that are still being worked out in the form of different social and technical solutions. The ability to easily export/import and backup 100% of your data is still a crucial missing feature, so that if you do get kicked out of or want to leave an instance you can easily upload all of your data to a new instance.

However, in the long term I am optimistic about the federated approach. While not foolproof, it is resilient against lock-in, and allows different parties to explore different visions for how it should work without having to build their own community from scratch. The migration from platforms like YouTube will be slow and difficult until a critical mass is reached. A similar migration away from LBRY would be just as difficult. A similar migration away from Peertube would be much easier thanks to ActivityPub. This makes Peertube a much lower-risk platform to embrace.

Other thoughts:

* If a company's business model is aligned with the interests of its users, they have every reason to advertise this. If it is not easy to figure out from a company's website how they make or plan to make money, consider the possibility that their business model is contrary to the interests of its users.

* If their business model is based on something happening in the future (like the value of an asset increasing), consider how their behavior might change once this happens.

* Also consider how their behavior might change if it *doesn't* happen and they they become desperate to make money in some other way. A lot of companies that did not at first seem very problematic became so out of desperation.

* When terms of service require you to give up rights that you have under certain laws, look up those laws and consider whether you would be okay with those laws being repealed. As the saying goes: Don't take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

* With some exceptions (such as free software/culture licenses), when you agree to a contract that you didn't help write or otherwise negotiate, everything in that contract (unless mandated by law, in which case a government has negotiated on your behalf) exists to benefit the other side.

davidpgil
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A rejoint: 08/26/2015

What I am trying to point out is, *something* needs to be done about the aspect where Free Software has no warranty in the sense that if I use the software and it destroys my work due to the actions of a person who serves the software, then that issue should be addressed. From what I have seen with Mastodon in particular there is this extreme leftist vibe to most of how things are managed and handled. I moved to four different instances that I thought would be safe choices for me, even a instance that supposedly is open-minded, and was instead persecuted. Somebody needs to make something else that federates with everything, and does not allow blocking off of other instances that are deemed "hostile", and have that decision to block or not blaock left up to the users discretion. I know I may sound like I am whining, but I really believed in decentralized software, but I felt "cancelled" and persecuted.

The way I use LBRY is via installing the app locally and almost never use the website version. I have not looked closely at the terms of service with regarding using this yet. I will at some point.

Regarding running my own instance, I have looked at the costs associated with that -- time and money and it seems to be too much for me right now.

chaosmonk

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A rejoint: 07/07/2017

> The way I use LBRY is via installing the app locally and almost never use the website version.

"The source code we release in connection with open source software is not part of the Services, and your use of that source code without interacting with our Services is not subject to these Terms."

So you can install the app locally and run it, or hack on the source code, under the terms of the MIT license. But as soon as you watch a video or othewise interact with LBRY's services you are subject to the TOS.

> What I am trying to point out is, *something* needs to be done about the aspect where Free Software has no warranty in the sense that if I use the software and it destroys my work due to the actions of a person who serves the software, then that issue should be addressed.

I agree. I just don't think putting one company back in charge, especially when their TOS explicitly reserves the right to ban people without justification, is a solution. I think the solution is data ownership. You should be able to sync all of your personal data from your instance to a local machine, or your Nextcloud, or wherever you want to keep it. If you want to or are forced to switch instances, it should be as easy as syncing your own copy to the new instance and bam all of your toots and photos are back up. Right now you are free to switch instances much more easily than you can switch from a centralized platform to another centralized platform, but there is still some friction like losing some of your data, and that should be fixed.

> Somebody needs to make something else that federates with everything, and does not allow blocking off of other instances that are deemed "hostile", and have that decision to block or not blaock left up to the users discretion.

The blocking feature does need to exist in some form, because it is there for legal reasons. Sometimes content is legal in one country but illegal in another country. For example, lolicon is legal in Japan but illegal in the UK. Holocaust denial is legal in the United States but illegal in Germany. In order for an instance to comply with the laws in their country, they need to block certain content from instances in countries with different laws. This is also something centralized social media has to deal with, and something LBRY will eventually have to deal with. Mastodon's solution is the block feature, because if a user or instance posts a large amount of such content, an instance admin cannot realistically keep up blocking posts one at a time. Same with users or instances known for frequent abuse, or content that goes against an instance's community guidelines. That said, I agree that the blocking feature is also sometimes misused.

> From what I have seen with Mastodon in particular there is this extreme leftist vibe to most of how things are managed and handled.

I don't know where you are coming from politically or what you consider "extreme leftist". I have certainly run into some leftist instances, but I've also run into a lot of far-right cryptofacist (or not-so-crypto) instances, and a lot of instances which are not particularly political but focused on a specific topic or interest. There is no one way to run things that will make everyone happy (see Twitter). I think it is inevitable and correct that there should be different communities that mostly federate with communities with compatible values, but again, I acknowledge that things like blocking are sometimes misused. I don't know anything about your situation, which instances you joined, or what happened, so I don't know what the problem was in your case.

davidpgil
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A rejoint: 08/26/2015

I actually dont want to go into detail about what happened because I dont want to trigger anyone. I do agree that blocking features are needed, but they are absolutely misused. I think the only way around this IS data ownership so I guess I will have to just make that happen. I wont invest myself in any other services and expect anything reliable or even basically functional. Thank you for Trisquel community for being pretty consistent and mature. Thanks chaosmonk for helping me deal with my irritations regarding these things. Appreciated.

Magic Banana

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

What I am trying to point out is, *something* needs to be done about the aspect where Free Software has no warranty in the sense that if I use the software and it destroys my work due to the actions of a person who serves the software, then that issue should be addressed.

The server is free software for its administrator. She controls it and deserves its control. You use a service under the terms she decides. They may be bad. And the server administrator may be bad too (as in the accident you reported with PeerTube). Those are issues but not "free software issue".