Bitcoin was not conceived of or designed as a system where random people would voluntarily run FTP servers and store random files forever for free. That is being backward rationalized into a monetary system where that kind of architecture must exist for other reason but the incentive issue remains. No one is going to do this for you, even if they want to for other purposes. They are going to defend themselves. They always have been, and are having to switch client to be able to continue doing so due to Bitcoin Core's negligence and downright malice.

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The idea that the free market or transaction fees alone will prevent spam is unrealistic. You cannot compare ordinary users who just want to transfer money with actors who treat the blockchain as a global billboard. What looks expensive for a simple payment may seem cheap when it buys worldwide, permanent advertising.
ESE's avatar
ESE 2 months ago
I'm considering the idea that malice might just be a side effect of Bitcoin Core's instinct to protect itself. They've already fallen. Run knots, destroy the zombies.
It's software, and like any software people run it for a purpose. If that purpose is money, core is no longer the best option. Fortunately there's an alternative. As Peter Todd said "I gotta point out, if you want the option run Knots."
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G Force G 2 months ago
Its difficult to believe that once the powers that be (the UN? IMF?) began taking bitcoin seriously, they didn't see it as a threat and then take over what all of the resources under their control These people topple entire nations if their leaders don't play ball. Maybe Git commits to wallets and nodes should be completely anonynmous to avoid compromising good devs.
Judge Hardcase's avatar
Judge Hardcase 2 months ago
The use cases for this are unlimited. For example, imagine a simple general-purpose 'browser'-like client that took a txid as the URL. That client could then query any available archive node for that txid and display the contents of the 100k op_return as a webpage - with the op_return potentially including references to other txid's, and so on. BOOM: your content hosted for you forever for a one-time fee. Frankly, people have to be pretending that they lack the imagination to see the potential for the low cost of forever data amortized over eternity.
you know there is already inappropriate data stored on the blockchain?