If you’ve used jsDelivr, GitHub Pages, Google Fonts, and or unpkg then you’ve used a CDN (Content Delivery Network).

I spent a little over five years working for a CDN (Long Live MaxCDN!) and toward the end, the market was getting super competitive, saturated, and profit margins were becoming extremely thin. We ended up getting acquired by a company that offers more web services than just content delivery which is definitely needed in order to survive in the highly competitive cloud computing market.

I haven’t worked at a CDN for a while but I still keep tabs on what is happening. When I was still in the game, I never even thought about CDNs that would end up using a blockchain as a way to distribute content on a global scale. That was until I discovered Sia (not the amazing singer-songwriter).

If you haven’t heard of Sia, it’s a decentralized cloud storage platform that leverages blockchain technology to create a data storage marketplace. The creators claim that it’s more robust and more affordable than traditional cloud storage providers but I haven’t checked those claims in a production environment for myself. I’m just going to give them the benefit of the doubt and ask anyone reading this to please comment below if you can share your experience.

One product that uses the Sia network is Skynet is “The decentralized CDN and file sharing platform for devs.” If I was still in the CDN biz this would make me a little worried. Margins are thin enough! Regardless, I’m excited to see a CDN product built outside the box. The last exciting thing I saw in the CDN space was Peer5, which operates a large peer-to-peer (p2p) CDN by leveraging WebRTC and JavaScript.

What I like about Skynet is that they actually show you (a DEVeloper) how to get started right away. Here a simple code sample written in JavaScript to show you how easy it is to upload an image:

const skynet = require('@nebulous/skynet');

(async () => {
 const skylink = await skynet.UploadFile(
   './sia-namebase-gitcoin-hackathon.png',
   skynet.DefaultUploadOptions
 )
 console.log(`Uploaded! 👉 ${skylink}`.replace('sia://', 'https://siasky.net/'))
})()

As you may have noticed, there is no API key required! 🎉 Once it’s uploaded it will give you a URL to your file*:

$ node siaskynet.js 
Uploaded! 👉
https://siasky.net/PACROgvZaKLHOauEy6e9ePm04hBJ1U6DxIjTVq6TeOO-SQ

* supported file types: HTML, PDF, Image, Audio, Video, JSON, Dapp

What do you think?

Could Sia/Skynet be the future of storage platforms and CDNs? Why or why not?

P.S. Sia and Namebase are throwing a virtual hackathon on Gitcoin called Own The Internet. If this type of tech interests you, sign up. It starts from July 29th to Aug 19th, 2020. There is no entry fee, and it’s open to all regardless of whether you are a beginner or a Web3 expert. 👨🏽‍💻👩‍💻