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

Background: The crypto world, including SteemIt, is abuzz about MaidSafe and the SAFE Network right now. Partly because the price of the coin has spiked. This is because MaidSafe has released a public Alpha [5] of the SAFE Network, which is what really has people excited.

This is part 1: How SteemIt Can Benefit From MaidSafe and the SAFE Network. Scroll to the end of this post to see links to the other parts.

Q: How Can SteemIt Benefit From MaidSafe and The SAFE Network?

A: Permanent and Decentralized Image and Video Storage

On the SAFE Network, you upload your images once and they are stored FOREVER

Forever. Think about that. Right now on SteemIt, your text goes into the Steem blockchain, but your photos and videos don't. You need to trust them to a centralized service like YouTube (for videos), or ImgUr or SteemImg.com (for photos). As great as these may be, will they be around in a year, five years, ten years? Your posts will be because they're on a blockchain - it will not look so nice if your images are broken jpeg's.

Not only that, when you upload a photo or video to the SAFE Network, you only need to pay once (using SafeCoin which you may get for free anyway by 'farming' out your computer's resources) and your media can be downloaded an unlimited amount of times. Without a central authority. This is a big deal.

image credit

More Thoughts on "Forever Media"

Isn't This Done Already by SteemIt and the Steem Blockchain?

The creators of Steem and SteemIt, @dan, @ned and crew are smart people. They realized that you can't solve all problems at once and focused on a couple of things they could do. For my money, the most important things about Steem and SteemIt are: they created a user friendly social network on a blockchain, and they created the STEEM, STEEM DOLLARS and STEEM POWER trinity. There is more but to me those are the main things. They knew that these challenges were large enough and important enough to focus on them, without at the same time solving the problem of where large media files like photos and videos should go. To me, it is also not clear that a blockchain ² is the right place to store massive amounts of media files (or even to manage all of the meta data for the files). ³
This is where MaidSafe and the SAFE Network comes in.

This Seems Crazy, Why Store Data Forever?

Isn't that wasteful? Isn't that just dumb?

My understanding of the theory behind this is that over time both storage space (hard drives) and network usage (bandwidth on the internet) become more abundant and less expensive. The marginal cost savings of accounting for and managing the deletion of data is higher than the marginal cost to keep the data in the SAFE Network. Note that if the data isn't used very much, it will probably only be replicated the minimum amount of times (vs. frequently accessed data which may be replicated many more times), but it should still be available "forever".

Other Advantages of Storing Your Photos and Videos on the SAFE Network

The SAFE Network has many advantages, including the fact that they store the data sharded and encrypted all over the globe without the need for data centers, which should mean faster load times, reduced data consumption and less energy usage. This post only scratches the surface of what the SAFE Network project promises.

Part Two

Part 2: MaidSafe 101 - The SAFE Network, MaidSafeCoin, MAID, SafeCoin and Project SAFE.

Cover Image Credit

@nonlinearone (me) created with freely available icons: https://www.steemimg.com/image/l8WMI

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. 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 2 - 4

Footnotes and references can be found in part 4.

Part 2: MaidSafe 101 - The SAFE Network, MaidSafeCoin, MAID, SafeCoin and Project SAFE

Part 3: MaidSafe Alternatives, or "Doesn't Project 'X' Already Do What MaidSafe and the SAFE Network Does?"

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 vote button. All proceeds will be powered up into STEEM POWER :)

Follow Dr. Bryan's Blog: @nonlinearone on SteemIt

#maidsafe #steemit #steem #blockchain