However, a lot of those got a bunch of investment or made some decent money in the short term. Very few are still around. We will see the same pattern here.
Pull requests in github is actually very similar conceptually to a consensus mechanism used in crypto currencies. Everyone has an identical copy of the main branch with an identical history of every commit in order, a PR is saying "I think this commit goes next" and, if you use code reviews, the PR approval is consensus.
Have you ever seen a git graph? Does this look linear? https://tortoisegit.org/docs/tortoisegit/images/RevisionGrap...
All secondary branches are works in progress that may be proposed as new commits to main.
Sticking with the blockchain comparison, every side branch in got is akin to potential blocks that miners are working on.
My point is that git is a data store involving a genesis block (initial commit), blocks of changes/diff's, tracked in sequential order, and with a form of consensus (code reviews and merges to primary).
What is missing that makes it not a blockchain?
And my caveat here, I can't stand arguments for cryptocurrencies and have never purchased any. Blockchain as a concept is fine, and git is a blockchain as best I can tell.
git is very much a blockchain
- sequential list of changes to a data source (commits)
- single, shared history of changes (main branch)
- users creating potential next change(s) to be added to the history (side branches and forks)
- consensus mechanism for new change blocks (merge requests and code reviews or approvals)
What's missing?