HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#101

Post by carolc » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 8:39 AM UTC

vog wrote: post #92

carolc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the comment below https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15376665 . It is not true that distributed systems are only good for static content or "append-only" data. "Mutable systems" can be built on top of immutable systems.

I agree with you, but your argument is deeply flawed. There's quite a far stretch between "Y can be built on top of X" and "X is good for Y". To provide an argument that might fill this gap: Most systems don't actually have a huge amount of data. Look at the data size and data growth of CRMs, special-purpose wikis, and so on: These are mostly smaller than 500 MB (excluding static content like images), and grow by les…

Agreed that many CRMs etc. don't have a lot of data. And that's actually good, it makes the database size very manageable in the context of trustless, distributed networks.

I'm not following the logic of the argument here though, jumping from "X is good for Y" to "...don't actually have huge amount of data", perhaps you can elaborate?

With a merkelized append-only log (immutable DAG), there's always an audit trail. I agree with your point about "mutable look and feel", in a lot of use cases there's only a limited set of "writers" and updates happen infrequently.

Perhaps I should rephrase my previous comment, then, as "immutable systems are good for building mutable systems on top". Does that help to provide a better counter argument?

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#102

Post by blurbleblurble » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 8:43 AM UTC

apatters wrote: post #96

blurbleblurble wrote: post #74

I need to comment because people are missing the point... there's nothing in this text that says the web won't need servers. Imagine that you and some friends want to launch a small local business and need to host a website. Instead of paying to host it "up in the cloud", why not plug a few raspberry pi's into the walls at each of your houses? Between that and also seeding it from your laptops, the site should have d…

> Imagine that you and some friends want to launch a small local business and need to host a website. Instead of paying to host it "up in the cloud", why not plug a few raspberry pi's into the walls at each of your houses? Setup, updates, maintenance, tech support, and uptime guarantees, just to name a few reasons that "the cloud" is better. A service like Wordpress.com or Wix beats the self-hosted Pi on all of these…

I don't literally mean a Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is the Apple 2 of what I'm imagining. I'm talking about some next generation stuff, picture a Firestick with a much more refined iteration of sandstorm, with distributed apps that have hardly even been conceived of right today in 2017.

If my roommate can plug a Roku into the TV, and knows how to use Ableton Live and Squarespace, there's absolutely no reason he couldn't use something like that.

And there's no reason that those non-technical people couldn't continue to pay you for helping them use stuff like that.

And there's no reason that people can't continue to use stuff like Facebook. But I have a feeling that people are going to be over that way of doing things by the time the next two decades are over.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#103

Post by carolc » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 8:44 AM UTC

lgierth wrote: post #87

katastic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's pretty simple. "Better" has to actually "be better ENOUGH" to warrant all of the retooling of existing systems. I've got plenty of clients who would happily run Windows 2003 ("it's paid for") if it weren't for changing standards that aren't compatible (newer TLS, Exchange, etc) and security breaches. They only upgrade because they have to. "E-mail is e-mail" to them. But if you sell them some magical n…

Another important factor for adoption/adoptability is how well the new system integrates with existing deployments of older systems. Ideally it completely interoperates with the older systems, while providing you with additional value right from the start.

Agreed with lgierth and I believe this is what sets IPFS apart from many similar technologies: integration path for existing technologies. As far as I can tell, it has been an important design decision from early on for IPFS.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#104

Post by vog » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:03 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #95

vog wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The metric system While I agree with your sentiment, this one is a bad example. I grew up with the metric system, as did the vast majority of the world. I have an intuition for "meter", "kilograms", "seconds", and so on. I need to convert to cumbersome stuff like "miles", "inches" or "pounds" only when reading articles written by, you know, inhabitants of that strange, large country over there.

It's still a good example because the government in your country probably mandated it. People didn't just switch on their own accord.

IBTD. This is mostly an educational issue. Here in Germany the metric system was introduced in 1872 [1], and compared to other European countries we were already late to the party. That's plenty of time for transition. The last generation who didn't work with the metric system is dead for a very, very long time.

[1] The history is actually more complicated, but let's not get into that.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#105

Post by Luker88 » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:05 AM UTC

carolc wrote: post #61

projectant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's like, Woah, hold your horses there. "Obsolete"? I don't think so. To what extent can this IPFS serve an API or a dynamic database at this point? To what extent will it ever be able to do that? I think HTTP/websockets is very good for these things. Static data is one thing, dynamic is a whole other story. It seems IPFS is just a new distributed way to archive data. So what? It doesn't help serve somethin…

Databases, and dynamic content in general, can be done with/on IPFS. Take look at OrbitDB ( https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-db ) - "Distributed peer-to-peer database for the decentralized web" or their blog post "Decentralized Real-Time Collaborative Documents - Conflict-free editing in the browser using js-ipfs and CRDTs" ( https://blog.ipfs.io/30-js-ipfs-crdts.md ). And all that works in the browser without runnin…

In general? No. Just because you can, it does not mean you should use a distributed db. Please remember to say that distributed, open databases have very narrow use cases.

Leaving aside use cases like credit card information, there are a lot of user information that is illegal to share unless the user explicitly consents. In the EU you can't even share your access logs by default.

And how do you handle authentication? Passwords? how do you avoid user enumeration, the collection of user email and info?

Distributed filesystems and CDN in general are great, but let's use them for things that do not actually need a single bit of security, please.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#106

Post by ketzu » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #64

chii wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true for revolutionary new technology. Not true for incremental technology that aims to replace an existing similar technology. Especially if the incremental tech is something that most "normal" people don't really care about (such as hosting content on the internet).

A distributed web (including proper mesh networks) has the potential of changing the status quo from constantly worrying about data limits and "I don't have any wifi" to "normal" people having constant "internet" access everywhere they go. I think they don't care much about the underlying technology, but they will notice when some apps work faster and without a mobile data connection when others don't.

Couldn't people build webapps like this today by heavy caching and storing data locally?

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#107

Post by cocktailpeanuts » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:13 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #25

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who's going to pay for servers to retain random peoples' and companies' web detritus? You mean Filecoin? Anyway, I'm also a skeptic about this model but I do think there is a sliver of chance that it may work. There ALWAYS is a sliver of chance that something crazy may work. That's how it's always been. IBM laughed when personal computer vendors and OS creators thought that they will put computers on everyone's des…

First, let me say that I think that IPFS is a good idea and that it has applications that are useful now. However, if I interpret the parent's "thoughtless hype" as "hopelessly naive", I'm pretty much in agreement. Checkout Freenet[0]. And while trying to maintain anonymity makes the problem even more difficult, there are fundamental problems in Freenet that make it basically unusable (mostly around cache coherency a…

First, it was not IPFS people who said HTTP was obsolete. If you check out the original post, it's from Neocities blog.

Second, people tried "sharing economy" startups back in the web1.0 era when everything went down crashing. But in 2017 we have Uber.

The freenet project doesn't change my argument at all because like I said, I'm not saying IPFS will succeed. I'm saying there's always a chance because the world is constantly changing. If you're lucky, you're at the right place at the right time building the right thing. If you're not, you fail.

In 1999 this wouldn't have worked of course, and that's my point. Successful projects succeed not just because of the product but also because of luck, timing, etc. There are so many new powerful technologies coming out nowadays, not to mention the societal change.

This is definitely a different world than what it was in 1999 and I'm saying just because it didn't work in 1999 doesn't mean it won't work in 2017.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#108

Post by hobofan » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:19 AM UTC

ketzu wrote: post #106

hobofan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A distributed web (including proper mesh networks) has the potential of changing the status quo from constantly worrying about data limits and "I don't have any wifi" to "normal" people having constant "internet" access everywhere they go. I think they don't care much about the underlying technology, but they will notice when some apps work faster and without a mobile data connection when others don't.

Couldn't people build webapps like this today by heavy caching and storing data locally?

To some degree yes, but with IPFS that becomes easier in my experience.

Even with static websites you usually need to have a web server you are able to connect to, or have to go out of your way to add a Webworker that makes is offline-capable. There a single address that is served via an IPFS gateway behaves better with less additional tooling.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#109

Post by ketzu » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:25 AM UTC

noam87 wrote: post #36

dingo_bat wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do I have to fetch jQuery from fricking California when it's sitting on my girlfriend's phone in the other room? Because your girlfriend probably values her battery life and data usage? I doubt we'll ever see phones hosting any ipfs content for the reasons.

If data isn't embarrassingly cheap before mid-century we did something terribly wrong. Ditto electricity / battery life by the end of century. (and again: content-addressing could drastically reduce data usage anyway.)

If I understand correctly, the argument isn't against content addressing but against sharing the content with anyone. While you have an incentive to store it locally and reach for that first, you (currently) have a negative incentive (=cost of data/electricity) to share it with someone.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#110

Post by geezerjay » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 9:31 AM UTC

blurbleblurble wrote: post #74

I need to comment because people are missing the point... there's nothing in this text that says the web won't need servers. Imagine that you and some friends want to launch a small local business and need to host a website. Instead of paying to host it "up in the cloud", why not plug a few raspberry pi's into the walls at each of your houses? Between that and also seeding it from your laptops, the site should have d…

You're not describing a problem that users need fixing. You're describing how nice it would be for corporations to unload their own infrastructure requirements onto unsuspecting users to try to piggyback on their hardware. That's not a solution to any problem. That's in fact a problem being created for users. Consumers purchase hardware to fill their needs, and there's nothing to be gained for wasting their resources and energy to power someone else's business.