People have this misconception that blockchain is free, crypto is free. They can do whatever they want by holding the crypto and there is nobody to worry about. In reality that is just not true. There is always someone who has to pay for it.
For example, if you hold Ethereum, there are some other person that does the bill payment for servers that host the node. You have people that pay for the development. There are people who hold the servers that does the swap for the coin too.
In short everything we do on blockchain is not free. Witness, nodehosts and also the people who develop on it, ends up paying for it. And in short this only makes sense till the bill does not go above the income generated out of the same.
Popular to what people think crypto is not free, it has a cost. There is a strong cost to the decentralization, it is just that someone else pays for it.
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
Node Hosting
Blockchains require multiple hosts and nodes and for that there is a cloud server. And it is not going to be free. Someone has to pay for it from their pockets. You may find that there are people who may be paying for it from their own pockets and we dont see the funds burned in the bills.
In short node hosting has a cost. And this is one of the highest cost depending on how it was configured. Like how much RAM and the CPU being utilized and being used for the setup of the node there. If you can see how that would work out for the blockchain, it adds up as a cost.
Code and Development
The second most investment is the code.You have some developers always working on the base blockchain code. Be it any chain.And they are being paid by someone,or they are doing this from the goodwill or boredom.Either one has a cost.
Nothing is free as far as the development and the code is concerned. You either pay from the pocket and other option is the development would eventually going to cost you some money in the due run. That is what I have realized in the process.
Expansion
This is hidden cost. Someone is promoting the chain and the applications for the chain. Some of the people are doing the word of mouth or any other type of the chain promotion. In short it is reasonable to say that expansion has a cost and it is dependent on person who takes up the load.
In short the expansion is not going to be any easy for anyone who is in the process of marketing, getting new users and also paying for all this to happen. Making small things to help the chain also goes into this part as well.
In short, blockchain is not a free money, it is as usual exchange of money. You uploading content and getting paid has a cost and it's a lot of time invisible.