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IPFS, Again

macwright.org

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Re: IPFS, Again

#221

Post by autonome »

acdha wrote: post #219
autonome wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPFS is useful to blockchain projects because of the permanence of content hashes. That doesn’t mean it’s not also useful to many others. QRI is using it as the publishing medium and backing store for all kinds of data sets, for example. No blockchain, just shared storage across interested parties. You make a really good point about communicating readiness - the author of the post is expecting more from pre-alpha sof…

IPFS has had public releases since 2015 with rhetoric implying general utility, not to mention $300M in funding. If it’s still “pre-alpha software” that’s not a mere communications problem.

Er, I meant pre-beta not pre-alpha. It's still in development. Sounds like the core API is pretty much settled and not expected to change (much).

Building a platform is not like building an app. And a platform that changes significant parts of internet infrastructure is different from just building any platform. I worked on Firefox for 13 years... the internet is a harsh and fickle thing.

That said, people are using IPFS with millions of users today.

I very much agree about the rhetoric. The homepage is polished, and speaks to a bunch of features that are possible to varying extents in varying environments, but not easy to demonstrate. Bandwidth savings is a good example of this.

Re: IPFS, Again

#222

Post by aschmahmann »

chriswarbo wrote: post #141

I agree that IPNS is pretty unusable (do names still expire after 1 day?). Last I saw, the IPFS devs seemed to be pretty excited by a pub/sub mechanism they were building into the system; potentially to replace the workings of IPNS. Is that a stable or useful alternative for indexing changing content like a blog? How decentralised is the pub/sub (i.e. do new subscribers need to contact the publisher, or are messages…

The way IPNS uses the DHT faces some deep challenges if you really need the “latest” IPNS update (if you don’t there are various ways to make IPNS perform significantly better, see https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/ipns-resolution-takes-a-very-long-... for guidance).

There is also some work to make IPNS work over PubSub independently from the DHT. That work is being tracked at https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues/6447, and should significantly improve IPNS performance as well as add in features like allowing users other than the author to keep IPNS records alive (so no 1 day expiration issues).

As for the decentralized nature of pubsub it is essentially an opt-in system. Random people on the network are not holding or forwarding your messages as they would in the DHT. However, anyone who has subscribed to a topic will propagate messages for you to other subscribers. This means subscribers do not need to directly contact the original IPNS record publisher to get a record, but instead can get it from anyone who has it and is advertising that they do so.

Re: IPFS, Again

#223

Post by momack2 »

neiman wrote: post #211
momack2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almonit looks cool. The IPFS in Web Browsers working group has also been collaborating with Nick Johnson et al from ENS to create an “EthDNS” server to resolve ENS names to IPFS content in a decentralized way (along the lines of https://github.com/mcdee/coredns ). Should be a working demo in time for IPFS Camp in ~2 weeks!

Sounds interesting. Is there more info about it or I'll have to wait for the IPFS camp to satisfy my curiosity?

Lidel has written a lot about this in issues (nice index here: https://github.com/ipfs/in-web-browsers/issues/147), but I think the live (recorded) demo will have to wait. =]

Re: IPFS, Again

#224

Post by acdha »

autonome wrote: post #221
acdha wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPFS has had public releases since 2015 with rhetoric implying general utility, not to mention $300M in funding. If it’s still “pre-alpha software” that’s not a mere communications problem.

Er, I meant pre-beta not pre-alpha. It's still in development. Sounds like the core API is pretty much settled and not expected to change (much). Building a platform is not like building an app. And a platform that changes significant parts of internet infrastructure is different from just building any platform. I worked on Firefox for 13 years... the internet is a harsh and fickle thing. That said, people are using…

> That said, people are using IPFS with millions of users today.

This seems like the thing they should lead with: what are those users doing and why would be a great way to explain the value.

Re: IPFS, Again

#225

Post by plywoodtrees »

kebman wrote: post #105
drawnwren wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this argument before and tend to disagree. There is certainly greed, but I think the larger problem is that crypto doesn't have users. I don't think it's particularly novel in 2019 to say that a successful app is built off of the feedback of its users. Any app, regardless of intentions or engineering prowess, is going to struggle if it doesn't have a sizeable user base providing feedback (and devs who liste…

I think you're touching on an important point. There are already other vessels for the niche that cryptocurrency fills—at least as far as websites and web services go—that are way easier to both implement and use. With that said, I'm still rooting for cryptocurrency as a general competitor to state-backed currency, that in turn gives people all over the world more freedom to conduct their business without state or co…

The distinction between "gives people more freedom to conduct their business without state intervention" and "enables crime" seems very elusive.

I can see an argument that enabling crime under oppressive regimes is moral. Or even enabling particular crimes that you feel shouldn't be crimes.

I have trouble seeing the legitimate use case for cryptocurrency in first world countries. If the main use case is crime, money laundering and speculation, it will either be squashed or remain niche.

Re: IPFS, Again

#226

Post by drawnwren »

plywoodtrees wrote: post #225
kebman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're touching on an important point. There are already other vessels for the niche that cryptocurrency fills—at least as far as websites and web services go—that are way easier to both implement and use. With that said, I'm still rooting for cryptocurrency as a general competitor to state-backed currency, that in turn gives people all over the world more freedom to conduct their business without state or co…

The distinction between "gives people more freedom to conduct their business without state intervention" and "enables crime" seems very elusive. I can see an argument that enabling crime under oppressive regimes is moral. Or even enabling particular crimes that you feel shouldn't be crimes. I have trouble seeing the legitimate use case for cryptocurrency in first world countries. If the main use case is crime, money…

I tend to agree with your assessment, but you are dancing around an important point.

Most people in the world don't live in a first world democracy. Today, many of these countries are stable and providing currency for their citizens. But ask a Venezuelan if they can see a reason why we might want an alternative to a state backed currency and I feel like the answer is self-evident.

Vitalik saw this use case and talked about how disheartened he was by the ICO boom because it was use cases like this that he believed in, so it isn't at all an afterthought.

Re: IPFS, Again

#227

Post by jeremyboom8 »

ambicapter wrote: post #137
jeremyboom8 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using this pattern increases fungibility. Could I ask you to share what makes you think it decreases fungibility?

> When I buy a ticket, my ticket is tied to a certain seat on the train. If I went to Mars, my ticket would be worthless. What if I don't want a train ticket? What if I want to sell my widget-coin for some brussel-sprouts-coin. Now I can't go to any farmer because he's only got carrot-coin or broccoli-coin, I have to find the brussel sprouts farmer-and not only that, but the brussel sprouts farmer who wants to buy wi…

It’s different because the US dollar is the worlds’ reserve currency, and it is violently backed by US imperialism.

The MetaCurrency Projects’ Holochain is the next generation P2P no-middle-man accounting system which open sources and decentralizes the rules around money creation and usage. It allows us to evolve the rules together and build mutual credit, interoperable, open and unencloseable carrier’ currencies. Currencies are backed by real world commodities, leading to a rich network of flows between a community.

Your comparison shows me that you might not yet have had the privilege of critically exploring the underlying patterns and stories that have made Industrial Age money the tool it is today. For me ‘The Future of Money’ by Bernard Lietaer, and David Graeber’s ‘Debt: The First 5000 Years’ are very paradigm shifting books and helped me to challenge the underlying stories of economics that I believed. These stories stopped me from seeing a more beautiful future.

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