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I disagree, the internet is very much centralized. In your example, this very post on HN points to an https url. An url that for now, means this article, but y

by nodja 9y ago

I disagree, the internet is very much centralized. In your example, this very post on HN points to an https url. An url that for now, means this article, but years from now might land in a 404 page, or a dns not found. Sure I can use the internet archive or find your post here on HN and ask you for it. But those are alternative services, they're not part of http. IPFS ensures that a url means one thing and one thing only, if changes, the url changes. No censorship, no ninja edits, as long as someone in world is willing to host that specific url, the ipfs protocol will serve it.

the-dude 9y ago
But will there be a server which serves it?
skybrian 9y ago
Immutable data has its place, but you wouldn't want to use that for Hacker News because reloading the page wouldn't show new comments. Also, when someone edits a comment here, usually that's either harmless or beneficial.
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Fwiw, IPNS is mutable - you wouldn't use applications directly over IPFS, you'd view them over IPNS. So it has mutability in the sense that a single address can change content over time. It's nice though, in that if it's important that content stays the same, it always will.
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    IPNS is virtually unusable at this stage. It's super slow that most people who use IPFS just use IPFS directly and try to come up with their own solution for this. I do hope they figure out how to solve this problem but looking at the discussions around the issue, it doesn't sound like something that can be easily solved, maybe never.
    - diggan 9y ago
      I left you a comment addressing the IPNS slowness here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434057 Short version: we know, it sucks and we have a couple of ways of making it better, fear not I also want to add that we have many other ways of doing mutable data over IPFS, not just IPNS. While IPNS is a naming system, having services on protocols with streams or using pubsub can also give you the ability to do mutable state in your application.

by nodja 9y ago

the-dude 9y ago

But will there be a server which serves it?

skybrian 9y ago

Immutable data has its place, but you wouldn't want to use that for Hacker News because reloading the page wouldn't show new comments. Also, when someone edits a comment here, usually that's either harmless or beneficial.

notheguyouthink 9y ago
Fwiw, IPNS is mutable - you wouldn't use applications directly over IPFS, you'd view them over IPNS. So it has mutability in the sense that a single address can change content over time. It's nice though, in that if it's important that content stays the same, it always will.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  IPNS is virtually unusable at this stage. It's super slow that most people who use IPFS just use IPFS directly and try to come up with their own solution for this. I do hope they figure out how to solve this problem but looking at the discussions around the issue, it doesn't sound like something that can be easily solved, maybe never.
  - diggan 9y ago
    I left you a comment addressing the IPNS slowness here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434057 Short version: we know, it sucks and we have a couple of ways of making it better, fear not I also want to add that we have many other ways of doing mutable data over IPFS, not just IPNS. While IPNS is a naming system, having services on protocols with streams or using pubsub can also give you the ability to do mutable state in your application.