[kristjansson]

I actually agree with all of that. I don't agree that storing that sort of data on the blockchain supports statements like "the users are in control of their own data". You're make a distinction between assets/content/etc. and 'data' that I don't think most users would recognize as a difference. If I make a playlist on decentralized-Spotify, and then that service goes bust, it's weak comfort that I'm able to move a list of song-hashes unless I (or another service I can move to) have access to the corresponding content. I can only exert as much control over my data as I over the off-chain content store[1].

What categories of data do you see that (a) average users care about and (b) would want to control beyond the life of a service provider but (c) doesn't depend on the availability of assets/contents/etc. cannot be viably stored on-chain?

[1]: Sure, FileCoin and dependent services offer some control and guarantees over off-chain data I guess.

[rglullis]

> What categories of data do you see

Again, it's not about the data. Data is cheap. It's the meta-data and what you can do with it that is interesting. It's about the new classes of applications that might come up when the underlying data is not stored by any middleman.

To illustrate: the "Pirate Bay catalog" is many times larger than anything offered by any of the streaming services, but the majority of people still prefer to pay for the services. Github is the destination of almost every open source project, and companies are paying a good amount of money not for the storage of data, but for what it can be done with it.