"Blockchain" isnt a single thing. Bitcoin is definitely peer to peer. Most cryptocurrencies are operated in a peer to peer way.
> It relies on blockchain nodes, which you can run yourself, but mostly people don't do that
Most people not doing it is irrelevant. They can if they want. They can get rid of more middle men if they want. Even using custodial cryptocurrency services get rid of some layers of middlemen and so is still a win.
> and it isn't free to do
Yes it is. There is no substantial cost in running a bitcoin node for example.
> The reason users of the blockchain
There is no such thing as "the blockchain"
> the reason.. users .. don't currently have to pay anything to use ["the blockchain"] is that owners of blockchain nodes earn money by holding coins that appreciate relative to their local legal currency at a sufficiently fast rate that they don't need to charge their users.
You're wrong on many many levels, as I told you in my other comment to you. Please stop trying to explain things that you clearly don't understand.
That doesn't seem like a permanently sustainable business model. Coin values can't keep shooting up forever, and at some point blockchain node owners are going to need to either shut down or directly charge blockchain users, and then you're back to the same situation as normal payment processors.