This article is originally written by Iris in the IPFS Force Area
In the middle of yesterday, someone asked the official 5 questions in Slack-Filecoin’s current boundaries, and the features that will appear after the release (commendation from @Why).
And from this, a friendly and in-depth conversation with @Why also brought us a more detailed introduction to Filecoin.
Paid vs free
One of the most interesting to the editor is a very important issue for Filecoin’s development today-
In the face of the Internet, where everything is free today, how should Filecoin create advantages (attractive conditions) and let more people switch from “free” to “paid”?
As a matter of fact, for us, the good and bad brought by the “free” Internet, we have long been accustomed to it-an advertisement pop-up pops up when retrieving information, and we just flash it in our minds. “Troubled”, very few really pay to search for information because of complicated advertisements.
Eye-catching ads on free paper pages
Just as we scolded a certain degree of advertising mode, we also used it “true fragrance”.
Fake “free” true “privacy violations”
In this way, how does paid filecoin retrieval compete with “free” Internet? This is actually a very difficult problem to solve.
When looking at the history of Web development, we often say that all existing networks make data free for us to use. The essence is that advertisers or other data providers pay for us:
1. As mentioned above, when we open a webpage or application, we usually pop up ads. These are the ads that pay for our retrieval data. In this way, advertisers can gather a lot of traffic in a short period of time and achieve product conversion. After all, these advertisements are actually pushed by our previous search (favor), who doesn’t like to take a look at things that interest them?
2. Why ads can be pushed according to our search classification, this is the reason for the second free search. Your retrieval (favorites) is exactly the key personal data. Therefore, when you generate these data through free search, some unscrupulous search providers can make money by selling your data. Now that AI and big data are so popular, how many companies are your data dreaming of! However, for most Internet users today, no one can fundamentally understand these. Therefore, they are extremely resistant to something that suddenly becomes “not free”, even in small quantities.
Change starts with cognition
In the final analysis, Filecoin’s paid search wants to win the current “free”, it is not enough from the perspective of creating advantages-even if Filecoin can provide data confirmation and privacy protection, it is more friendly to people than the current network.
What is more needed is to popularize and change from the cognitive level of people-let “pay a little, ask a little” need to return to public awareness.
Like from the beginning of the movie is free, to some movie members free, to a small number of movie member discounts (this model editor does not comment), our public is actually a state of gradual acceptance.
Of course, every major change does not happen overnight. Want to change people’s “free Internet” thinking, it can not be achieved in one day.
But for now, more and more people are awakening about data and privacy; more and more Internet service providers (browser providers, application development companies) are also using decentralization more Technology to match this change. Cognitive changes, coupled with the decentralization of mainstream applications, the two lines are advancing in parallel. I believe that the era of paid search instead of “free resources” will soon come.