When discussing storage protocols, people usually focus on three points: price, speed, and availability. These are indeed critical, but from the perspective of a developer aiming to build reliable Web3 applications, you'll realize the issues go far beyond these.

What truly determines how far a storage layer can go is not how fast or cheap it is, but whether it can become a truly trustworthy and indispensable support within the ecosystem.

Currently, Web3 faces a sharp contradiction that no one dares to openly acknowledge: the data on the chain is permanent and unchangeable—that's the iron law. But what about the real content that these on-chain records point to? Often, it's not.

Think about it: your NFT ownership information on the chain is clear and precise, but where is the image or video that represents its value stored? Most likely, it's a link on a centralized server or a somewhat unstable decentralized storage network. Large blockchain games claim to create eternal virtual worlds, but the core data like player operation records and item status changes are not stored on-chain at all—they're scattered across various places. On social protocols, every piece of content you post and environmental data collected by DePIN devices that could represent digital identities are mostly not stored on the decentralized ledger. They are just referenced via a hash or pointer externally. Once the backend service experiences issues, everything becomes a bubble.

This is the core problem. It's not that the chain is broken, but that the "physical body" outside the chain isn't properly settled.