RE: Steemit Images under 1mb could be stored on the Blockchain using Base64!
This would result in incredible block chain bloat requiring immense storage space on every node along with a vast increase in bandwidth usage in order to synchronize the nodes running the blockchain. Even if you could somehow reduce the size of a 1MB image file to 1% of its original size (strictly hypothetically speaking) given that 10s of thousands of images are or will be included in Steemit posts everyday, the blockchain bloat would be completely prohibitive.
Additionally there are possible copyright infringement implications if Steemit is used to store copyrighted images without the owners permission. There might still be some liability around linking to copyrighted images hosted on other websites but its certainly not as clear cut as hosting copyrighted content.
Very good point. Defiantly the biggest issue is the size no matter what way you look at it.
Yes hosting of copywriter images would be a bid deal because once the data is on the blockchain, its there for good. Although since its stored as Base64 encoded string it actually isn't being hosted , just like how apple hash emails when they sell them to third parties ... but thats all sticky stuff
With many crypto currency projects blockchain bloat is a big problem. The distributed blockchain model is not conducive to any content storage applications.
That might change with future storage technology? If it does, hermetic archive of data would be a valuable thing in some cases.