[acdha]

> So for example Amazon could easily implement this, and do it at scale. Would you trust Amazon? To both keep custody of your data, ensure that it will always be available, that it would not be meddled with? Would an enterprise like Wal-Mart trust that?

Yes, far more so because Amazon will give you a legally binding contract with things like SLAs.

The problem with decentralized systems is that serious apps cost more to run but people generally don’t want to pay for things which don’t benefit them. You can ameliorate the performance and reliability problems of a blockchain by throwing capacity at it but there’s always the question of why you wouldn’t spend less to run your own private system to avoid the possibility of having problems caused by people you don’t even know about.

[bytelines]

SLA is simply an intent to provide a level of service. If that can't be met, then there'd be an agreement on what the consequence of that was. Don't meet an availability SLA and maybe you get some credit back. You can't offer a best effort for non-repudiation of data. It either is or it isn't.

Maybe trust is the wrong word. Like - yes they might say they intend to provide this level of service, but the only way they can actually guarantee that level of non-repudiation of data is with cryptographic proofs and decentralized consensus and now you've basically got a cryptographic ledger.

PoW Blockchain isn't the only technology to accomplish this, either. There's a whole host of blockchain and post-blockchain technologies seeking to corner that market - a more efficient blockchain. Hedera for example uses the hashgraph algorithm.