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HTTP is obsolete.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

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Re: HTTP is obsolete.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

#31

Post by dingo_bat »

noam87 wrote: post #24
Semiapies wrote: post #11

Ugh, servers! Except, you're gonna have to have servers unless you've got the entire web backed up on everyone's computer. Otherwise, you don't and can't know how many copies of a page or other file are out there. But who's going to pay for servers to retain random peoples' and companies' web detritus? This whole project exists because that's not feasible in the long term... It's not "crazy", it's pure, thoughtless h…

- Even assuming all this, a hybrid approach of HTTP + IPFS (or DAT) is still better than what we have now, since IPFS is essentially a worldwide CDN for static files.(Sorry: an inter-planetary one.) - The content-addressing aspect makes it perfect for distributing commonly used libraries. - We already cache all this content locally. What a waste! Why do I have to fetch jQuery from fricking California when it's sittin…

> 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.

Re: HTTP is obsolete.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

#32

Post by alwillis »

Semiapies wrote: post #11

Ugh, servers! Except, you're gonna have to have servers unless you've got the entire web backed up on everyone's computer. Otherwise, you don't and can't know how many copies of a page or other file are out there. But who's going to pay for servers to retain random peoples' and companies' web detritus? This whole project exists because that's not feasible in the long term... It's not "crazy", it's pure, thoughtless h…

The primer is actually much better: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWimYyZHzChb35EYojGduWHBdhf9SD5NHqf8Mj...

There are over 5 billion files hosted on IPFS and over 500 GB per day going through the IPFS gateway. Not bad for something that supposedly doesn't work and that's only been around for a few years.

When people can get paid to make content available on IPFS… well, that's going to to be a quite a thing.

Re: HTTP is obsolete.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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

alwillis wrote: post #28
Semiapies wrote: post #11

Ugh, servers! Except, you're gonna have to have servers unless you've got the entire web backed up on everyone's computer. Otherwise, you don't and can't know how many copies of a page or other file are out there. But who's going to pay for servers to retain random peoples' and companies' web detritus? This whole project exists because that's not feasible in the long term... It's not "crazy", it's pure, thoughtless h…

Because IPFS uses a distributed hash table like Bittorent, you don't have to know where stuff is--that's the problem with the HTTP, which is location addressed. IPFS is content addressed—the hash is the location. You never host anything unless you want to; you don't host random stuff. It's 2017, if you're using Google Docs or an instant messenger program and lose access to the backbone, you can't communicate with som…

[deleted]

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

#34

Post by beager »

hyperpape wrote: post #21

Does HTTP have to lose for IPFS to win? Except the cost argument, none of the points in this article prevent sites from serving things via HTTP with IPFS metadata for the long term (though I don't know how that would play with advertising).

One question that came to mind while reading this was "Why do we have to demean HTTP in order for the tenets of IPFS to succeed?"

HTTP is ubiquitous, and no purism or idealistic superiority of some other protocol is going to sway everybody to the New Hot Thing. This is not a knock on IPFS but rather a recognition of reality: you're going to have to work within the current system to supplant it. And that means not only tolerating the old thing while pushing for the advantages of the new thing, but accepting that absorption of the dynamics of the new thing within the old thing represents a victory for the new thing, even if it doesn't get the named recognition.

Maybe we're ready to evolve beyond the limitations of HTTP (and HTTP/2, which I see as a viable and feasible, if not short-sighted improvement to HTTP). How are you going to get Google, Facebook, Amazon, and everyone else to go along with you? If you offer the benefits as compatible add-ons to the existing norms, you will succeed. If you demand that we fully jettison HTTP to achieve something better, methinks you will have an insurmountably hard time.

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

#35

Post by IncRnd »

__s wrote: post #27
jlrbuellv wrote: post #18

It's kind of funny that the example link to a "permanent" object still returns a 404 ("ipfs resolve -r /ipns/QmTodvhq9CUS9hH8rirt4YmihxJKZ5tYez8PtDmpWrVMKP: Could not resolve name.") I totally want the web to magically be distributed too, but clearly not even the author is bothering to host their IPFS content anymore...

> IPNS isn’t done yet, so if that link doesn’t work, don’t fret. Just know that I will be able to change what that pubkeyhash points to, but the pubkeyhash will always remain the same. When it’s done, it will solve the site updating problem.

That's how these things always work, by saying "it will work one day."

If it would work, and the cost benefit ratio were there, people would adopt it quickly. That's what happens with just about everything else.

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

#36

Post by noam87 »

dingo_bat wrote: post #31
noam87 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Even assuming all this, a hybrid approach of HTTP + IPFS (or DAT) is still better than what we have now, since IPFS is essentially a worldwide CDN for static files.(Sorry: an inter-planetary one.) - The content-addressing aspect makes it perfect for distributing commonly used libraries. - We already cache all this content locally. What a waste! Why do I have to fetch jQuery from fricking California when it's sittin…

> 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.)

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

#38

Post by mcbits »

dingo_bat wrote: post #31
noam87 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Even assuming all this, a hybrid approach of HTTP + IPFS (or DAT) is still better than what we have now, since IPFS is essentially a worldwide CDN for static files.(Sorry: an inter-planetary one.) - The content-addressing aspect makes it perfect for distributing commonly used libraries. - We already cache all this content locally. What a waste! Why do I have to fetch jQuery from fricking California when it's sittin…

> 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.

In a post-carrier world, she would be paid with tokens that she could use to buy faster network access later in the day or sell any surplus to heavy network users (probably indirectly through a brokerage, perhaps even run by a company that used to be a carrier). The tokens might even buy electricity from the neighbor's solar panel to charge the phone.

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

#40

Post by projectant »

CryoLogic wrote: post #5

Obsolete? Maybe not yet. But I do think putting forth effort to improving distributed protocols like IPFS could be very helpful in preventing internet censorship like we have seen from Comcast, YouTube, etc. recently.

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 something like FB over a distributed network does it?

And to what extent could some sort of "protocol" vulnerability stop these networks from being "uncensorable". Are they truly resistant to censorship, or could they be effectively shut down somehow? Wouldn't DDOS attacks cripple these? I mean, that's a crucial flaw, right, you just have to look up all nodes for an piece of content and constantly flood them with DDOS traffic and then, hey, you've censored the network, right?

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