Marco Treven I agree that the challenge of data understanding is more one of data visualization more than anything else. For some reason whenever I think about this problem I come back to the old saying “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The truth is that all of the data in the world won’t matter if the end user doesn't know what to do with it.

It’s vital, as you pointed out, that we find a way to get the data out of these siloed databases and into one application because the human body doesn’t work as individual systems it works as one entity where any impact in any area will have an influence on multiple other areas.

I agree that a decentralized mechanism for the storing of this data is necessary but it is then up to the user to take control over their data and grant access to various people and entities depending on the need. I don’t know if people are willing to take on this task. We haven’t been able to observe that in real-terms yet (or at least I haven't- if you have I’de love to see it) so we don’t know exactly what it looks like.

The insurance company tracking is a tricky one because while they say they’re doing it to reward good behavior, by definition this penalizes bad behavior. Regardless, they aren’t tracking the right things. As you pointed out, steps is really a next to useless metric for measuring performance. Other easily tracked measurements that are kind of useless are calories burned and even heart rate because a heart rate at any one point in time doesn't really tell you anything. With heart rate, it’s about trends over time.

My question to you, if I may ask another, is what do you think would be the goal of the user-controlled app (or dApp I guess)?

Would it be to simply act as a wallet for all data storage? Would it help users understand their data (in a visualized way)? How would that dApp make money?

Super interested to hear your thoughts!