5 ms·

The most expensive part for any "decentralized web" is going to be data storage, so the question basically boils down to "How can a person in a P2P system incen

by drcode 10y ago

The most expensive part for any "decentralized web" is going to be data storage, so the question basically boils down to "How can a person in a P2P system incentivize other people to host their files for them?" Bittorrent sidesteps this question by focusing only on very popular files and enabling hosting by default in most clients. So far, no established solution exists for doing this. The most promising projects working on this problem that I know of are IPFS[1] and Ethereum Swarm[2] but both are still struggling with the low level protocol that makes sure person A gets paid for hosting files from person B. [1] https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/ [2] http://swarm-gateways.net/bzz:/swarm/ http://swarm-gateways.net/bzz:/swarm/

api 10y ago
Given how cheap drives are I think upstream bandwidth for that storage will quickly eclipse the storage itself.
- drcode 10y ago
  I disagree- the hardest files to deploy in a decentralized web are "long tail" files, for which there is usually very little demand on any given day (by definition) but which are extremely important to establishing a new web platform.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I think I rememeber that napster and various other file sharing services held quite a lot of the long tail but I might be wrong (never a heavy user). IIRC the problem was more that there was an awful lot of malware + the RIAA and MAFIAA.
    - drcode 10y ago
      Napster had a tail 40,000 files long, with the decentralized web we'll need a tail 1,000,000,000 documents long or something.
- zrm 10y ago
  > Given how cheap drives are I think upstream bandwidth for that storage will quickly eclipse the storage itself. Which suggests a solution -- keep several of copies of everything (or copy-equivalents with erasure coding) and then download the one(s) with the cheapest/free bandwidth. People care if you run down their battery or use up their cellular data. Not so much when the device is plugged into AC power and connected to unlimited broadband/wifi. At any given time there should be enough such devices that you don't have to make requests of any of the expensive ones. Add to that the ability of people who don't want to worry about it (and don't want anyone they know to worry about it) to lay out a few hundred bucks once for a 10TB NAS and leave it connected to their broadband connection, and it feels like an actual solution.
fungos 10y ago
I've being toying with ZeroNet and WebTorrent/web2web and I see a glimpse of the future there. Not really sure about how to achieve mass scale without having something unique and attractive to it (or an incentive as in bitcoin). But I can imagine a kind of software or device that may become popular that uses/requires this, that will turn this into something that people will get too used to that may become something essential in the long run.
kauffj 10y ago
LBRY (https://lbry.io https://lbry.io) is designed to do this. On GitHub: https://github.com/lbryio https://github.com/lbryio Disclosure: I'm the CEO
- wyager 10y ago
  Isn't this essentially IPFS plus namecoin-with-bidding? That's what I got from the reddit AMA. I'm not sure how it addresses storage. Also, just trying to be constructive here, but you guys really need to work on branding. The AMA went about as poorly as it possibly could have because you didn't have good presentation. Here's how you have to pitch the whole "bidding for URLs" thing; "There are permanent, long-form URLs like on YouTube. But people can bid on short-form URLs if they want to as well. You have to bid on them so squatters can't take them all over. If someone outbids you, you get your money back. We make no money from this." Boom, every inane reddit comment about "corporations will buy all the video links, man!" shut down.
  - anc84 10y ago
    That whole bidding for URLs thing is making it dead on arrival for me. What incentive could there possibly be?
    - kauffj 10y ago
      Only vanity URLs are reserved rather than owned. See this for more: https://lbry.io/faq/naming https://lbry.io/faq/naming
  - kauffj 10y ago
    I agree! The AMA had a lot of confusion, exacerbated (or arguably caused) by materials that poorly explained LBRY on our end. To address this, we've written up this FAQ answer: https://lbry.io/faq/naming https://lbry.io/faq/naming We've also communicated the truth better inside of our community, but it is tough to get that message back out to everyone that saw the AMA.
marknadal 10y ago
Adding to the list (disclosure: I'm the author): http://gun.js.org/ http://gun.js.org/ and we have a storage layer that plugs into S3 that can handle 100M+ records a day for $10 (about 100GB+ of data) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8 . The goal is that P2P systems are "economies of scales", so the price point is orders of magnitude less than their centralized alternatives. This disruption on price is how we pay for the decentralized web.
nhaehnle 10y ago
Honestly, the real problem with the "decentralized web" isn't data storage or bandwidth, it's developers. Getting users to "pay" for storage and bandwidth is fairly simple, as they're already used to owning devices and paying for internet connectivity. The real problem is that developers who actually build the decentralized applications need to be paid somehow. How is that going to be organized? How does the money flow?
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "The real problem is that developers who actually build the decentralized applications need to be paid somehow. How is that going to be organized? How does the money flow?" It's possible to have decentralised app store. Apps could be hosted by developers. Metadata that could also be hosted by a developer would then determine which app stores the app should be available on. Users searching for an app using the app store could then pick up on this metadata via crawling the decentralised web, as well as sharing lists of available apps with other users. As for payment, plenty of options there (including but not limited to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin).
mersenne 10y ago
Filecoin looks promising as well.

by drcode 10y ago

api 10y ago

Given how cheap drives are I think upstream bandwidth for that storage will quickly eclipse the storage itself.

drcode 10y ago
I disagree- the hardest files to deploy in a decentralized web are "long tail" files, for which there is usually very little demand on any given day (by definition) but which are extremely important to establishing a new web platform.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  I think I rememeber that napster and various other file sharing services held quite a lot of the long tail but I might be wrong (never a heavy user). IIRC the problem was more that there was an awful lot of malware + the RIAA and MAFIAA.
  - drcode 10y ago
    Napster had a tail 40,000 files long, with the decentralized web we'll need a tail 1,000,000,000 documents long or something.
zrm 10y ago
> Given how cheap drives are I think upstream bandwidth for that storage will quickly eclipse the storage itself. Which suggests a solution -- keep several of copies of everything (or copy-equivalents with erasure coding) and then download the one(s) with the cheapest/free bandwidth. People care if you run down their battery or use up their cellular data. Not so much when the device is plugged into AC power and connected to unlimited broadband/wifi. At any given time there should be enough such devices that you don't have to make requests of any of the expensive ones. Add to that the ability of people who don't want to worry about it (and don't want anyone they know to worry about it) to lay out a few hundred bucks once for a 10TB NAS and leave it connected to their broadband connection, and it feels like an actual solution.

fungos 10y ago

I've being toying with ZeroNet and WebTorrent/web2web and I see a glimpse of the future there. Not really sure about how to achieve mass scale without having something unique and attractive to it (or an incentive as in bitcoin). But I can imagine a kind of software or device that may become popular that uses/requires this, that will turn this into something that people will get too used to that may become something essential in the long run.

kauffj 10y ago

LBRY (https://lbry.io https://lbry.io) is designed to do this. On GitHub: https://github.com/lbryio https://github.com/lbryio Disclosure: I'm the CEO

wyager 10y ago
Isn't this essentially IPFS plus namecoin-with-bidding? That's what I got from the reddit AMA. I'm not sure how it addresses storage. Also, just trying to be constructive here, but you guys really need to work on branding. The AMA went about as poorly as it possibly could have because you didn't have good presentation. Here's how you have to pitch the whole "bidding for URLs" thing; "There are permanent, long-form URLs like on YouTube. But people can bid on short-form URLs if they want to as well. You have to bid on them so squatters can't take them all over. If someone outbids you, you get your money back. We make no money from this." Boom, every inane reddit comment about "corporations will buy all the video links, man!" shut down.
- anc84 10y ago
  That whole bidding for URLs thing is making it dead on arrival for me. What incentive could there possibly be?
  - kauffj 10y ago
    Only vanity URLs are reserved rather than owned. See this for more: https://lbry.io/faq/naming https://lbry.io/faq/naming
- kauffj 10y ago
  I agree! The AMA had a lot of confusion, exacerbated (or arguably caused) by materials that poorly explained LBRY on our end. To address this, we've written up this FAQ answer: https://lbry.io/faq/naming https://lbry.io/faq/naming We've also communicated the truth better inside of our community, but it is tough to get that message back out to everyone that saw the AMA.

marknadal 10y ago

Adding to the list (disclosure: I'm the author): http://gun.js.org/ http://gun.js.org/ and we have a storage layer that plugs into S3 that can handle 100M+ records a day for $10 (about 100GB+ of data) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8 . The goal is that P2P systems are "economies of scales", so the price point is orders of magnitude less than their centralized alternatives. This disruption on price is how we pay for the decentralized web.

nhaehnle 10y ago

Honestly, the real problem with the "decentralized web" isn't data storage or bandwidth, it's developers. Getting users to "pay" for storage and bandwidth is fairly simple, as they're already used to owning devices and paying for internet connectivity. The real problem is that developers who actually build the decentralized applications need to be paid somehow. How is that going to be organized? How does the money flow?

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "The real problem is that developers who actually build the decentralized applications need to be paid somehow. How is that going to be organized? How does the money flow?" It's possible to have decentralised app store. Apps could be hosted by developers. Metadata that could also be hosted by a developer would then determine which app stores the app should be available on. Users searching for an app using the app store could then pick up on this metadata via crawling the decentralised web, as well as sharing lists of available apps with other users. As for payment, plenty of options there (including but not limited to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin).

mersenne 10y ago

Filecoin looks promising as well.