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> to write something to a Blockchain I'm going to need to pay a fee to do so >I've not seen any web3 projects tout themselves as free data storage Well, of cou
by donkeyd 4y ago
> to write something to a Blockchain I'm going to need to pay a fee to do so
>I've not seen any web3 projects tout themselves as free data storage
Well, of course, because the main reason for building blockchains is currently to make big bucks by selling the attached cryptocurrency. Also, storage isn't free, so fee data storage can't exist. That also isn't what I was describing.
There's no need for there to be payments involved in a blockchain, however. What blockchain does is provide a medium to store data that is signed by someone and can be read by others. It also allows this data to be stored in a distributed fashion on the devices of anyone who wants to store it, without there being a possibility that someone changes the data without anyone knowing.
The commenter I responded to wrote:
> which was a barcode reader plus online DB. Until the company went bust, and the device magically transformed into a brick.
Hypothetically, if you were to use a blockchain to store the data, in stead of a centralized DB, anyone could run a copy of that blockchain and become a peer in the network. Users who still want to use the product after the company disappears can become a peers in the network to keep it running and prevent the device from becoming obsolete.
There have already been large organizations that experimented with blockchain in somewhat similar scenarios. They all run an instance of the blockchain and any data that has to be tracked between them is written to that blockchain. It's completely private to those companies, but nobody directly owns the data and there are no currency transactions involved in these blockchains.
I understand that there's confusion about this, because blockchain in the public eye means cryptocurrency. But cryptocurrency is just an implementation of the blockchain technology. And that technology works really well without any form of micro transaction involved.