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This is a good economic analysis, but I think it ignores the most interesting part of decentralized storage: privacy.
Of course AWS will always be more efficient then any decentralized network, but AWS can never credibly commit to not spying on you. Even if you encrypt your data, they will always have your metadata. You could try for a legislative solution, but it would be hard to enforce and open to abuse / corruption.
Whereas, with a decentralized network, each node not only can't see your data, but only gets a tiny slice of your metadata. Even if most of the nodes are in fact just regular datacenters, there would probably be enough of them to spread your metadata out; and, unlike with AWS, collecting your metadata is not really relevant to their business.
This might not be good enough. People might not value not being manipulated enough to use the service at a higher cost compared to AWS. It might be too hard to do technically, and even if it successful, it might end up being centralized enough that you lose your privacy anyway.
I didn't buy into any of these networks myself, but I do hope they are at least somewhat successful, if only for privacy reasons.
Jun 20, 2018, 4:47:45 PM
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