If a distributed cloud storage protocol became as ubiquitous as e-mail, the difference would be that buyers could buy tokens from anyone and not concern themsel

If a distributed cloud storage protocol became as ubiquitous as e-mail, the difference would be that buyers could buy tokens from anyone and not concern themselves with who actually stores their data. Also, anyone with spare storage capacity could join the network to squeeze a small amount of value from it until they have something more productive to do with it. That's also how proof-of-work systems should have worked with surplus compute cycles, except ... ASICs. I basically consider Bitcoin broken because of this. As to how the protocol creator makes money, they can sell storage like everyone else, but creating a protocol doesn't require the same initial capital as starting a whole cloud storage company.