If people value a library of this kind, why wouldn’t it also last forever?
Discussion
I'm not sure I understand your question. It will last forever by proxy of the incentive to maintain the monetary aspect of Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is also money, all participants have a high incentive to continue using and maintaining it.
Other libraries can be burned, lost, and forgotten, bitcoin is more resilient.
“If people value a library of this kind, why wouldn’t it also last forever?” was responding to Zach who was saying that a blockchain for the specific purpose of having an incorruptible library, separate from Bitcoin, was a doomed idea.
I get why Bitcoin will last forever. I just don’t get why an incorruptible library wouldn’t also last forever as its own blockchain separate from Bitcoin, since it’s also a good and valuable idea.
I run a Bitcoin node. I don’t run an incorruptible library node. The economic incentives of sound money are perfect for immutability and permanent storage, and we haven’t seen any model as robust without there being some form of monetary unit involved.
But I was wrong to say it’s impossible, it could happen. It would be a cool project, especially if you could somehow incorporate Bitcoin to secure it without having to take up so much blockspace.
I’ll walk it back a bit - they might, and maybe it could. However, Bitcoin is guaranteed to be around as long as people continue to find it to be valuable as money, so it’s much more certain that messages inscribed into it also last forever.
We haven’t seen a very good competitor free market product for long term truth storage yet. Everyone deep down knows all the shitcoins won’t last, even the biggest shitcoiner.