It's pretty reasonable to create multiple accounts for a video-sharing site, in my opinion. Sometimes you want to separate your identities, or you just want notifications for these types of videos to go to an account linked to a different e-mail address.
The first step in creating a LBRY account requires an e-mail address and a password. Sounds easy enough, no need to juggle keys to write down or copy and paste somewhere like in DTube. It's also what people coming from YouTube are familiar with.
But then LBRY rears its ugly head by asking for personal information before you can upload videos. You need the ability to publish on the blockchain itself to be able to post, and there are three ways you can get verified:
1st option: Insert your phone number. This turns me off Signal and Telegram, but even if I were to accept it...
Phone number verification "not available in your region." -_- Very funny, guys.
I'm not the only one who has this problem; this Redditor, along with countless people on the LBRY Foundation Discord server, has the same issues.
2nd option: Credit card verification. 🤮 No thanks.
3rd option: Verify via chat. Basically, you join their Discord server and then they send you a link to https://verify.lbry.com
But wait! In their conquest to fend off the parasites draining the supply of LBC, they set their guild to the Highest verification level, meaning you don't just have to make an account on data-snooping Discord, you also have to give them their phone number. Great.
The LBRY verification site raises even more red flags on just how Big Tech-wannabe it is: you connect your Discord account so they can match the email address used in it with the email address you used to make the LBRY account. And then, they ask you to connect your accounts in at least two of the following: Facebook, GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn.
It's alarming many privacy advocates promote Odysee as the best alternative to YouTube. In many ways, it is though, with a great user interface that looks clean and polished, and makes great decisions (like hiding video view counts) that let you know that, unlike BitChute or Brighteon, they do know how to design a video host!
But should we really jump in when all the signs point to it acting like a Big Tech company, just with a pro-FOSS and pro-privacy veneer?
DTube deletes videos that have too little views, PeerTube instances are too disconnected and specialized to recommend to average viewers, BitChute and Brighteon are not decentralized and also have a reputation for being right-wing echo chambers, 3speak is unpolished and has bad UI/UX... so yeah. Maybe Odysee is the least evil we have right now. 🤷