Few general (noob) questions about the internet computer

[Lendis]

Hey Steve

First of all thank you for your time. Most of the answers help me further but some things are still unclear.

@Steve

So, in each of those datacenters are actually servers, which run the canisters. The IC just happens to give you orthogonal persistence out of the box, and makes a massive effort to make it so developers don’t have to think in terms of servers. Most (hopefully all) big web services actually do this same thing with the idea of database replicas. If you’re using a managed service like Firebase, they also do this for you. Moreover, lots businesses will even pay to have their data archived on tape storage.

I understand. However, I still do not understand how the „storage problem“ is solved. As far I understand, my contribution to the IC is not only stored on one datacenter, it is stored on all datacenters in order to guarantee the unstoppable and decentralized nature. When the network grows and all data on the IC must be stored on all Datacenters won‘t this cause storage problems in the long-term?

@Steve

Since you’re writing your applications code you get to choose what data your application stores. You could in theory, develop more or less Facebook on the internet computer as it is today. On the IC all of your backend functions are open, but remember you write the code. So, you could create an function that lets your Facebook canister access some function in an Instagram canister that has “secret” business information.

Alright, sounds good. Because I think it is crucial for the IC‘s success that current popular networks can also be run on it in order to become mainstream. If it is possible for a company to run the same business model on IC like it is doing it today on TCP/IP (eg. Facebook) there is no competitive disadvantage for the IC in comparison to TCP/IP.

@Steve

Yes and no. You could write in methods to transfer ownership of a canister. But in anycase you probably shouldn’t be relying on a yubikey to access your entire business.

So on what one rather rely on? I think the risk of losing the connection to its software and data is much higher when using the IC in comparison to when using TCP/IP. This is one of the usual disadvantages of high decentralization. Although the pros of decentralizations overweigh the cons, this particular problem is probably something which should be kept an eye on.

@Steve

I have no idea how the E-ID stuff will work in the future, or if that will even be something the IC provides. However, identities on the IC are just keypairs. Nothing is stopping a developer letting their service link multiple keypairs to a single user.

So what does it mean for the user, how does he access his „account“, how is he linked to his corresponding keypair? What does it mean in the end for the user experience? Must the User store his keys with similar problems when he loses it like in point 3?

@Steve

Yes and no. The IC doesn’t exactly implement the web like it is done today. You could track users based on their keypair identities. But, should you be doing this?

Like in point two, I think something like this is crucial. I mean, I use google because I like their service and I‘m willing to make the trade-off to give them my data in return. Reality shows many people think like me. A business model like googles is only possible with personalized advertisement and data tracking. So I don’t know if people will switch to the IC if google (or a very similar company) is not offering its service there. Also I think companies on the IC need to be able to make similar profits because only then they are able to compete with companies on TCP/IP and therefore are able to offer a product which is just as good as the one of their competitors.

I want again thank you, for your help and your answers. As you may notice I‘m still in a learning phase thats why I have so many questions but this implicates my gratefulness for fast and qualitative good answers.