MaidSafe Alternatives, or "Doesn't Project 'X' Already Do What MaidSafe and the SAFE Network Do?"
Part 3 of 4. Hello fellow Steemians. Dr. Bryan here. We should all be excited about MaidSafe and the SAFE Network. Why? Because it "completes" SteemIt in a critical way by allowing you to store photos and videos forever.[1]
This is part 3: MaidSafe Alternatives, or "Doesn't Project 'X' Already Do What MaidSafe and the SAFE Network Do?". Scroll down for links to parts 1, 2 and 4.
Doesn't "Project X, Y or Z" do what the SAFE Network does already?
There are other promising projects. IPFS is already being used, and it's awesome. However, the data is not permanent. There is no guarantee that it will be stored and available a month, a year, or ten years from now. Storj is also very promising, but my understanding is that you'll pay a certain amount and the data will be hosted for a certain amount of time (e.g. 1 year, 2 years, etc).
Even if you want to forget about decentralization and simply pay a company - none of them will promise to store your data )at an unlimited level of quality) forever. For example, Dropbox lets you upgrade and store up to a TB, but you have to renew every year. What happens when you are in the hospital or worse and your credit card is declined at renewal time? Even worse, companies can change their terms so maybe what's affordable this year isn't next year and now you have to try to figure out how to download and move all of your photos. I've had companies screw me over even though I was paying them. [4]
As far as I know, "forever media" is a unique feature of the SAFE Network. No other current, past or future project promises to store your data forever with for no extra upfront, recurring, or later charge to keep the data 'alive'. Imagine the implications. Let's see you upload photos and make an introduceyourself introduce yourself post on SteemIt. If you store those photos on an image sharing site, they may be gone in only a few years (if you've been around the internet long enough you've had this happen). If you store them on the SAFE Network and link to them from your SteemIt post, the images will be there as long as the SAFE Network exists. This means that if your kids, grandkids, or great grandkids decides they want to learn more about their ancestors, they'll be able to because your SteemIt post will still be on the Steem blockchain, and your photos and videos will still be available on the SAFE Network.
Continue to Part 4
Part 4: Conclusions on SteemIt + MaidSafe, Featured Articles, and Footnotes
About the Author
Dr. Bryan holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Arizona and has been using cryptocurrencies since 2013. He's won prizes at three Bitcoin/Blockchain hackathons and has been Co-Organizing the Blockchain Meetup in Phoenix, AZ for over a year. His life story is outlined in his introduceyourself post if you'd like to know more. Thanks for reading :)
poweruppledge: I pledge to power up 
every STEEM DOLLAR 
earned from this post to STEEM POWER 
! Join the poweruppledge movement!!
An Invitation to the MaidSafe/SAFE Network Crew
It would be great if you all would join us here on SteemIt. Our goals are very much aligned and it would be great to have you.
Links to Parts 1, 2 and 4
Footnotes and references can be found in part 4.
Part 1: How SteemIt Can Benefit From MaidSafe and the SAFE Network
Part 2: MaidSafe 101 - The SAFE Network, MaidSafeCoin, MAID, SafeCoin and Project SAFE
Part 4: Conclusions on SteemIt + MaidSafe, Featured Articles, and Footnotes
Please show your support for SteemIt and our friends at MaidSafe and the SAFE Network by hitting that up button. All proceeds will be powered up into STEEM POWER :)
By the way all, I linked to this and the other three articles on the SAFE Network form. Cross-MOJINATION at its best :)
https://safenetforum.org/t/i-just-featured-the-safe-network-in-a-series-of-articles-on-steemit/10758
@nonlinearone
How does it fund the storage forever. Do you pay in advance for a perpetual storage?
My understanding is this. You (or whoever wants to store the image - possibly a site on your behalf) pay for a PUT to upload the data. This data is now part of the data which the entire SAFE Network is designed to store. As long as the SAFE Network exists, it will keep shepherding your data and will never delete it. I believe you (or other people if it's a public upload) will need to pay a small amount of SafeCoin in order to GET your data, but no ongoing payment must be made in order to keep the data "GETtable". In this sense, you can think of the small payment required to PUT any data on the SAFE Network as an advance payment for perpetual storage - but the payment for something you might want for a month and something you might want for a hundred years is the same. For a more detailed answer I think we'd need to dig into the SAFE Network documentation or code - or maybe someone from MaidSafe can stop by this post and help out :)