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IPFS would face a similar challenge as the “keep torrents seeded” problem mentioned by GP. Wouldn’t there be risk to peers who host the PDFs?

Natsu 5y ago
I sort of feel like there should be some way to use some kind of construct to get people to seed things so that others seed things for them, but I haven't seen that invented yet.
- zolland 5y ago
  I think seed ratios and seed time (mostly used by private trackers) attempt to solve this problem.
- miloignis 5y ago
  Been a while since I've looked at them, but IPFS with FileCoin and Ethereum Swarm had that kind of goal. It might be beneficial to create something like what you describe without any cryptocurrency association though, and I've been mulling over possibilities for distributed systems that are inherently currency-less to avoid all of the scams that cryptocurrency attracts.
  - Taek 5y ago
    The leader in that space is Skynet, which basically is like IPFS + Filecoin but also has dynamic elements to it, and a lot better performance + reliability. Cryptocurrency is helpful because it allows you to incentivize people to hold the data. If you don't have cryptocurrency, you're basically dependent on altruism to keep data alive (like bittorrent, or ipfs without filecoin). Popular files do okay for a while, but even popular files struggle to provide good uptime and reliability after a few years. On an incentivized network like Sia or Filecoin, you can have high performance and reliability without ever needing any users to keep their machines online and seeding.
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      Does it scale well? SciHub is at least 100TB.
      - Taek 5y ago
        Skynet already hosts nearly 1,000 TB of data. At 100 TB, SciHub would be material but also comfortable.
zolland 5y ago
What kind of risk?
- divbzero 5y ago
  I was thinking legal risk. In this case the publishers are going after Sci-Hub, but in the past they have gone after individuals.
- BelenusMordred 5y ago
  IPFS is not anonymous and like other p2p protocols shares your ip address. People seeding articles would get legal notices just like torrents now. There's been a bit of effort to get it working over tor for years now but the fundamental design makes this difficult. Also despite all the money that has poured into filecoin this doesn't seem to be a priority. This issue is nearly 6 years old: https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37 https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37

Natsu 5y ago

I sort of feel like there should be some way to use some kind of construct to get people to seed things so that others seed things for them, but I haven't seen that invented yet.

zolland 5y ago
I think seed ratios and seed time (mostly used by private trackers) attempt to solve this problem.
miloignis 5y ago
Been a while since I've looked at them, but IPFS with FileCoin and Ethereum Swarm had that kind of goal. It might be beneficial to create something like what you describe without any cryptocurrency association though, and I've been mulling over possibilities for distributed systems that are inherently currency-less to avoid all of the scams that cryptocurrency attracts.
- Taek 5y ago
  The leader in that space is Skynet, which basically is like IPFS + Filecoin but also has dynamic elements to it, and a lot better performance + reliability. Cryptocurrency is helpful because it allows you to incentivize people to hold the data. If you don't have cryptocurrency, you're basically dependent on altruism to keep data alive (like bittorrent, or ipfs without filecoin). Popular files do okay for a while, but even popular files struggle to provide good uptime and reliability after a few years. On an incentivized network like Sia or Filecoin, you can have high performance and reliability without ever needing any users to keep their machines online and seeding.
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    Does it scale well? SciHub is at least 100TB.
    - Taek 5y ago
      Skynet already hosts nearly 1,000 TB of data. At 100 TB, SciHub would be material but also comfortable.

zolland 5y ago

What kind of risk?

divbzero 5y ago
I was thinking legal risk. In this case the publishers are going after Sci-Hub, but in the past they have gone after individuals.
BelenusMordred 5y ago
IPFS is not anonymous and like other p2p protocols shares your ip address. People seeding articles would get legal notices just like torrents now. There's been a bit of effort to get it working over tor for years now but the fundamental design makes this difficult. Also despite all the money that has poured into filecoin this doesn't seem to be a priority. This issue is nearly 6 years old: https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37 https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37