Creating inspiring value with LBRY! This Tuesday afternoon, we had an awesome time with the CEO of LBRY — Jeremy Kauffman. From all the amazing questions we’ve recorded, we’ll take them into consideration. (some&answers questions may be edited slightly for grammar and readability.)
1. What is the background of the team?
A: LBRY has a team with a wide variety of skills and experience. Our CTO and I previously founded a SaaS company which we later sold to a private equity. About half the team has advanced degrees and about a quarter of the team are self-taught anarchist hackers. It’s a pretty wide background.
But we have people who range from having written self-driving car AI, growing e-commerce business to tens of millions, to writing hacks that bring down networks, you can read more at lbry.com/team. Also, unlikely many projects in crypto space, you don’t have to trust us to build something.
2. What are the plans of LBRY to scale up the business in 2020?
A: Recently the biggest thing to happen to LBRY is the launch of lbry.tv. This new web-based way of using LBRY is already seeing hundreds of thousands of users. This new web-based way of using LBRY is already seeing hundreds of thousands of users. In 2020 we will be support iOS (we already support Android), focusing on onramps/offramps, scaling to tens of millions of pieces of content (currently at 2 mililon), and adding more social / community features.
We also relentlessly continue to hone user experience. You can use lbry.tv from your mobile browser at least for now. It’s the biggest problem in the crypto space, we need to make our tech user friendly and fun. or no one will use it. (Well, the 1% of hacker nerds will, and I say this as a hacker nerd.)
3. What are the main measures LBRY takes to attract content creators?
A: We provide something that content creators really want and need — the ability to have true ownership over their brand and identity, the ability to not lose 40% of the price of their content to middlemen, and the ability to build on top of a platform that cannot change the rules unilaterally.
Building on youtube is building on quicksand, currently tens of thousands of YouTubers publish to LBRY as well through lbry.com/youtube. something like 20 YouTubers with > 1,000,000 subs. a lot of creators have begun bringing their audience over. There is also some Hollywood content, like films from Oscilloscope Labs.
4. Who are monitoring and censoring the contents in LBRY?
A: This is a complicated question, but a simple one at the root of it. LBRY is a new protocol similar to HTTP or SMTP. Like other internet protocols, there is no one place you can go to control it. There is not one computer that lists every website you can unplug! And in our quest to leave creators and consumers truly in control, just like with these other protocols, it means there is not one place you can go to censor content on LBRY. We do maintain lists of content known to be illegal or to have other issues so that users can use the network safely and legally.
5. PoS blockchains is becoming more and more popular, are you planning to switch to PoS in the near future?
A: I could definitely see us switching to PoS. Our attitude on consensus is to follow what works. We see a business opportunity in using blockchain as the world’s register of digital content, and in building great, user-friendly ways to access this network. but in terms of consensus algorithms, we read the research and let others be on the cutting edge.
6. Can you list any existing prominent creators that are also based on LBRY?
A: Part of the channel list: I Like To Make Stuff, TheProGamerJay, minutephysics, Jordan B Peterson, TomoNews US, BikiniModelFitness, 3Blue1Brown, NileRed, nickatnyte, ProHenis, La Fênix, OK!OK!, Nosso Canal, Edu Primitivo, TheFantasio974,, Bob Lennon, Bob Lennon, Ilha de Barbados, Top 10 Archive, CID VELA, Steezy Kane, Steezy Kane, itsRucka, Mrwhosetheboss, 8D Songs Bollywood, Khan Academy, Veritasium, Jayas Kumar, Jayas Kumar, MovieGasm.com, Crash Test Channel, MinuteVideos, Cinecom.net, The Next News Network, Canal Você Não Sabia, AmbuPlay, The S, Сергей Трейсер, Karim Jovian, Karim Jovian, Karim Jovian, Jack ManleyTV, Pokey, niverse Inside You, Hyun’s Dojo Community, SirKazzio, Vitalik Ignatyuk, -VV- Вадим Вадимыч МУР, Connor Murphy, Connor Murphy Vlogs, Wranglerstar
All of these channels are syncing to LBRY, and that is just 1M subs. A lot of them are promoting to come use lbry.tv and then there are also LBRY exclusive creators, etc. You can go to lbry.tv and see all of the things being published!
7. Currently, how many people are using LBRY and what’s the size of the whole community?
A: In a given week we see 50,000–100,000+ users, and thousands of new publishes. I think tens of thousands per week now. You can come hang out with thousands in our chat: chat.lbry.com.
Plus, we also have a telegram group, and the technical and contributing community is also big, which is important. Almost 200 contributors in the last year. We are definitely working on performance.
8. Most people are just starting out and are new to LBRY. What would you do to expand the LBRY network to people who don’t know LBRY yet?
A: So people generally come to LBRY for one of three reasons:
(1) There is a creator there that they like and/or that encouraged them to come. This is the best driver of growth and one we expect to continue to focus on;
(2) They are excited about the tech and/or blockchain aspect. This is a great audience as they help improve project and are natural early adopters;
(3) They care about free speech and/or free communication.
so those are the 3 main ways we grow user adoption.
