Changing How We Live With Blockchain Series: Towards A New Era Of Accessing and Storing Life’s Moments
Introduction
So you are walking by a resort and a beautiful scenery attracts you. But you are in a hurry, so you quickly bring out your iPhone, snap and walk away with the intention to check it out later.
Behind this simple process is a complex system comprising tons of data computing power hosted by massive data warehouses.
To comprehend how far we've gone, here’s a picture of an IBM hard drive being loaded into an airplane in 1956.
Guess the size of the hard drive? 5 MB! Yeah! Massive 5 MB! Whoops! So huge! :) A 2000 pounds drive containing so little space. 5MB is literally the size of jpeg files these days.
We’ve truly progressed in this aspect. But with the various problems we face in storing and accessing data. Things can get better.
In recent years, scaling Big Data storage has been an obsession of tech companies.
Finding a way to optimally store and access data is a big key to making a lot of life necessities happen. For example, accurately analyzing climate conditions’ data inputs can help warn residents of impending storms and tsunamis. Or finding enough water for the millions of people facing drought in Asia and Africa. So many life-saving use cases.
Where We Currently Are
The Reality of Centralized Web and Data Storage
As much we argue that the web was historically built on the premise of decentralization, the reality is that a number of companies have more-than-normal control over the web.
Now, we are not talking about Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Those obvious too big to fail tech companies. We’re talking about non-obvious ones like the International Telecommunication Union, The Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Here’s a link to an infographic that beautifully depicts this precarious situation.
A Call For A Distributed Web
A couple of years ago, a number of Internet activists gathered at a conference organized by the popular website, Internet Archive, to talk about the need for a distributed web.
A number of concerns like the Web not being reliable and private were raised. The biggest of them all was the fact that the World Wide Web was very fragile
Due to the scalability issues with HTTP, the average lifespan of a webpage is just 100 days. Precious life moments eroded away!
Is the Internet Down Today?
Last year, a spate of attacks hit the internet so much that a large part of it was down several times over the year.
It was so bad that a website dedicated to tracking internet uptime, Isitdownrightnow.com, was down too. So hilarious!
But should this be allowed to occur? Billions of people rely on the availability of a couple of internet services to earn a living and in some cases, save a life. 2 major events were when Amazon (AWS) servers were down and when DDOS attacks targeted a major DNS host called Dyn.
All this wouldn’t occur if there was a true decentralization of the web!
Move Away Google and Amazon: The New Data Kings Are Here
Decentralized Web + Decentralized Cloud Storage: A Promising Marriage
True Decentralization of The Web:
The IPFS is currently the only tested experiment that has proved that decentralization of the internet was possible. It would be interesting to see what new entrants like brave browser do.
IPFS is a distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files.
Here is a succinct explanation of what the service offers. It aims to help mitigate the problems faced by HTTP by decoupling data from their original servers making them permanent. Decentralized distribution after content verification also helps truly secure the Internet’s data.
The first implementation of the IPFS – InterPlanetary File System was Geocities - a now obsolete part of the early internet.
Remember it?
A few days ago, Mozilla partnered with NSF to raise a $2m fund that will encourage solutions championing the decentralization of the Internet and make it accessible for all.
As Blockchain and decentralization reach mainstream, it’s hoped that more solutions will be brought forward to truly decentralize the web.
Blockchain-Based Decentralized Cloud Storage Solutions:
The Cloud Storage Market is a huge one. Projected to reach a worth of $74.94 billion in 2021, leading tech companies like Amazon, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, IBM amongst others fight tooth and nail to gain a major market share. The billions of dollars spent on scaling doesn’t, however, eliminate the attendant problems that come with centralized systems.
Over the past few months, a number of blockchain based companies have been making attempts to tackle these giants square on. Prominent among them are Sia and Storj.
Both Sia and Storj attempt to leverage the power of the blockchain to store data in a cryptographically-secured and decentralized manner. This helps prevent the frequent downtime faced by conventional cloud storage companies during DDOS attacks. Beyond that, both apps seek to create an open-source platform that will bring internet users (called farmers by Storj) willing to rent unused part of their hard drives and buyers of cloud storage space. This way, the users are always in control.
Storj with its’ blockchain asset(coin) called Storjcoin X (SJCX) initially raised $3million and now has $56million market cap. Sia has gotten a faster traction with a current market cap of $480m.
Other blockchain based solutions like NXT, Factom, PeerNova, Swarm, FIlecoin and Tierion all seek to tackle one or more several issues in the data storage industry.
Conclusion
The world is slowly gaining consciousness that centralization of information helps no one. Every day, efforts are being made to better improve the way we store and access information as humans.
Truth be told, we’ve come a long way and we can only get better. In our struggle towards a more open and decentralized world, one can only hope that blockchain apps truly fulfill their potential.
Over to you
Have you used any of these blockchain-based clouds (data) storage apps and what’s your current pet peeve with the internet?
One of the best articles today ,thanks for sharing @infovore
absolutely agree. super well written and i love that you put sources.
Thanks for the compliment. Glad you enjoyed it
Decentralized cloud service is the future od the cloud project. The prices of dencentralized cloud storage and it's flexibillity and privacy will eventually beat the corporative cloud. Sia is just another step, we'll be seeing more cloud blockchain projects in the future. Thanks for this article
You're welcome. You're right. This is just the beginning. The future is going to be full with lots of interesting projects.
what! really? 5mb was that big? we have really come a long way then.
Haha . Yes. Just like the days when a computer would contain a whole room. We've truly come a long way!
Can you imagine how big would've something like 5gb looked ? Lol.
Very well written piece of work-I am impressed and agree. Blockchain technology and AI will certainly take over technological innovations . Blochchain technology is actually adding value to our daily lives including giving back control and power to the masses, creation of new technological revolusion and thank goodness that we are part of it here at steemit. Keep steeming and powering up, you earned my upvote and follow.
Today only two companies have complete monopoly over the entire internet but if platforms like steemit took off and became more popular then we will have a true free and decentralized web thanks for sharing such a nice article with the community @infovore
Exactly. We are living in interesting times.
Yes buddy. I am glad that both of us are part of the technological revolution. More success to come via this platform. I indicated on my blog post why steemit will rule social media segment and I am optimistic. Have a blessed day and stay in touch
Thanks man. Nice to see you drop by again. It's important that we take control over key life affairs.
wow one of the best work i have read in some day keep it up bro
you are just to great nice post
That IBM hard drive with 5 MB is ridiculous! How far we've come, huh? Thanks for the info, @infovore =)
New follower here. Cheers,
@abn
Thanks for sharing, it is interesting
It's quite interesting to think about the size of a hard drive back in the days and today. Before you needed a truck to transfer a 5mb hard drive, today you can carry 4TB in your pocket! Crazy! I haven't used any blockchain-based clouds yet, but I've start looking at some.
Nice article. I have tried storj at initial stage to rent my free disk space. There is a concept called Infinite Computing that means computation for users is virtually free and unlimited. Billions of decentralized compute or data-storage nodes can provide very lost cost computation or storage to users. The way decentralized economy is growing, it will provide customers the opportunity not only to have low cost services but also to earn by using these services. Evolution of free social media (Facebook) to more incentivized, income-generative one (steemit) is already here :)