Are Azure "Block Blobs" an example of "block storage", "object storage", or (somehow) both?

Question

My understanding is that "block storage" and "object storage" are two different, and mutually exclusive kinds of storage. Yet the name of Azure "block blobs" strongly suggests that they are both object storage and block storage.

Question: Are block storage and object storage actually mutually exclusive? Or are they not mutually exclusive, and is it actually the case that Azure "block blobs" really are both "block storage" and "object storage"?

Previous knowledge:
I get that the "ob" in "BLOB" stands for "object", and that Azure Blob Storage is roughly the equivalent of AWS S3, AWS's object storage service. Likewise, Azure disk storage is roughly the equivalent of AWS EBS (Elastic Block Storage) because both provision virtual disks, and Azure Files is roughly the equivalent of AWS EFS (Elastic File System). So far so good, given that S3, EBS, and EFS are all separate services on AWS, and Blob Storage, Disk Storage, and Files are all separate subparts of Azure Storage Accounts.

The fact that "object storage" and "block storage" are segmented between two distinct services in AWS (S3 and EBS respectively) strongly suggests that they are distinct (and mutually exclusive?) kinds of storage. As do the numerous webpage results for a google search of "object storage vs block storage" and several online lectures I've seen. But Azure does not use exactly the same kind of terminology regarding block vs object storage, and has "block blobs", so I am no longer sure.

This SO question about block blobs seems related but to not answer my question Differences between Azure Block Blob and Page Blob?

This other SO question seems to possibly answer the question Isn't everything block-storage? (File-storage, object-storage, block-storage) Namely, that perhaps "block storage" and "object storage" refer to different levels of detail about storage protocol, with "block storage" referring to a higher/more general level of detail, and thus allowing "object storage" as a specific subtype and/or implementation of "block storage".

Eg "equids" refers to anything in the general "horse family", and maybe that is like "block storage", whereas "horse" or "zebra" refers to a specific species of equid, and maybe that is like "object storage". Or specifically "zebra" is like "object storage", and "horse" is an ambiguous term that could either refer to the horse species, or any member of the overall "horse family" (including zebras), making it analogous to "block storage"? Maybe "block storage on a disk device" is like "horse" the species? Sorry for the bad animal analogy.

Answer 1

If you are comparing Azure Blob Storage with equivalent AWS services, then Block Blobs are equivalent to object storage in S3.

Page Blobs in Azure would be equivalent to EBS in AWS.