This page will bring up a light technical overview of Golem, to make most people be able to understand what it is - and potentially find their own use-cases. Right now, it's not that easy to understand - especially if you don't have a background in technology.
Usually, when people talk about what Golem is, they leave it at "Golem is a decentralized and distributed marketplace for computing power," but this is a very complicated sentence. What does it actually mean?
What does a distributed marketplace mean in this context? What's decentralization? And beyond that, what can we compare it to in everyday words?
Golem has two major roles: requestors and providers.
Providers let other people, requestors, use their computers in exchange for money.
The computer in question is a sort of "computer inside a computer" - so requestors can't put viruses on the providers computer.
The requestor can run their programs on provider computers, the providers get paid, and everyone is happy :)
After reading the previous section, it may sound that all programs can run on Golem. This is not true because:
1. Right now, internet can't be accessed from these programs.
2. Right now, you can't use graphics cards in these programs. (a computer part that's good at calculating advanced formulas and algorithms in a fast manner)
This makes it so that you can't run any of these examples:
1. A Minecraft-server. This is because we can't use internet yet.
2. Learning Artificial Intelligence (ML) efficiently. This is because we can't use graphics cards yet.
3. A website. This is because we can't use internet yet.
Maybe Golem sounds utterly useless after reading the previous section. For most it is, but there are still a few things you can do with it:
1. Learning Artificial Intelligence (ML) without efficiency.
2. Rendering 3D models without efficiency.
3. Miscellaneous computations. This can be, for example, generating the best possible chess move.
4. Hosting databases (without persistent storage).
Maybe this promotional video can help. Alternatively, Golem themselves have made their own brief overview here. Sorry in case you need this! :D
Written by figurestudios
Suggestions by @Phillip#9780, u/Gnapstar & @Matt80#1385
Language corrections by @krunch3r76