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HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
121–130 of 337 posts
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#122The author claims that IPFS enables a "permanent web" and eliminates 404-like experiences. How does IPFS guarantee that all published content will be available forever? (In my beginner-level knowledge of IPFS, this is the first I've heard that claim. It seems absurd.)
And quite annoyingly, it's the opposite of how IPFS works. IPFS nodes only cache the content as long as it's actively requested. Depending on the cache policy of the node, this can be as short as 24 hours. Yes, it could still exist on your private node that your running from your laptop, but this is the equivalent of saying that all published content is available forever because it's on your hard drive . Honestly, I…
> Yes, it could still exist on your private node that your running from your laptop, but this is the equivalent of saying that all published content is available forever because it's on your hard drive.
No, the difference is that IPFS will use the same address to fetch content from anyone who's seeding it.
If Hacker News shuts down, it will no longer be accessible at 'news.ycombinator.com'; all existing links to that address will die, or worse will start showing some unrelated content (probably domain-squatter spam). That cannot be prevented by making a copy on my hard drive (or even the Wayback Machine).
On the other hand, an IPFS version will continue to exist at the same address for as long as anyone is seeding it. All links will remain working; anyone can join in the hosting if they like; even if it eventually stops getting seeded, it may still re-appear if someone re-inserts it, e.g. if they insert the contents an old hard drive they found in an attic (as long as the same hash algorithm is used, then the address will stay the same).
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#123IPFS needs to decide what it wants to be. Is it about being a decentralized caching layer? Is it about permanently storing content? Is it about replacing my web server? Is it about replacing DNS? Is it about censorship resistance? Right now it does none of those things well. The client chews through CPU and memory when seemingly doing nothing. If I try to download content, it is far slower than BitTorrent unless I go…
Imagine if we said that about web sites at the begining. The Web needs to decide what it want to be? A plaftorm to sell stuff? Contact people? Write? Listen to music?
There are two problems with this line of argument:
1. The web succeeded but many things whose backers made similar comparisons failed. Knowing that one technology had a big impact doesn’t say that a given unproven technology will be the next one to go big. It’s more likely that you’re looking at the next Groove Networks or something like that.
2. The web was immediately useful for many people and you could get started easily. IPFS has some interesting but far from unique properties and trying to be a network increases the amount of adoption and maturity needed for it to be worth using for most people. This is especially true for peer-to-peer sharing where the most useful participation requires up-front risk and costs which many people aren’t going to want to accept. Without that, it’s basically just harder to use web hosting which may or may not be cheaper.
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#124Economy of scale is hard to combat with a technically decentralized protocol.
Let's assume all goes well and in 2-5-20 years IPFS is the web. A random Joe has an IPFS server in his basement, because it's profitable or at least convenient for him. Most of the traffic never reaches AWS or CouldFlare. What do they do about it? They pretend to be random Joes and mirror the same setup.
Obviously Amazon will manage their servers more efficiently than an army of Joes, so the nothing really changes: we end up with a decentralized protocol where 90% of traffic just happens to end up on AWS servers anyway.
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#125Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the spinouts of IPFS is Multiformats, particularly multihashes. It is a standard to describe hashes and provide interop: https://multiformats.io/multihash/ (Or the IPNS dnslink: http://multiformats.io.ipns.localhost:8080/multihash/ )
Seems like this pointlessly duplicates the "Naming things with hashes" ni: and nih: URI schemes, standardised as https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6920 . (IPFS actually uses a proprietary "package" representation as parent points out, so there's little harm in it not using ni: URI's. But standard hashes of the underlying resource should use those. "Magnet" links are similarly problematic, but these at least support a fe…
> Seems like this pointlessly duplicates the "Naming things with hashes" ni: and nih: URI schemes
Wow, they have an URI scheme for Not Invented Here. Amazing!
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#127IPFS needs to decide what it wants to be. Is it about being a decentralized caching layer? Is it about permanently storing content? Is it about replacing my web server? Is it about replacing DNS? Is it about censorship resistance? Right now it does none of those things well. The client chews through CPU and memory when seemingly doing nothing. If I try to download content, it is far slower than BitTorrent unless I go…
and recently, a crypocurrency subsystem
Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)
#128People hating on IPFS DHT performance probably aren’t using the experimental accelerated DHT client. https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/blob/master/docs/experimenta...