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The hammer here is both. Cryptocurrrency is solving an incentive problem here that doesn't really exist. If anything, File hosters should not be the ones that p

The hammer here is both. Cryptocurrrency is solving an incentive problem here that doesn't really exist. If anything, File hosters should not be the ones that pay for the hosting, it should be whoever is retriving the file, and those funds should go towards relay nodes and hosting nodes. filecoin's incentive structure essentially replicates that of the existing internet, where file hosters will have to find some other form of income like advertisements or tracking to cover their costs. Here is a comment I made yesterday on the matter: >Instead of "liking" or "upvoting" a post on a centralized forum, why not "rehost" or "forward" a post on a decentralized forum: essentially seeding it like in BitTorrent or "pinning" it in IPFS. "Followers" of a user donate their storage and bandwidth to them, combating bureaucratic attacks like delisting and DDoS against popular users.

k__ 4y ago
I think, this is the main problem. Nobody really wants to host other peoples stuff, especially not on their desktop or smartphone. That's where Filecoin comes in. But yes, I think the Filecoin model is to heavy weight right now.
- cowtools 4y ago
  people have extra storage and bandwidth that they don't need. Anything that the public decides not to rehost is not worth being published.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    People do not have extra upload bandwidth to stream video. Plus the whole CGNAT issue of getting to a home device.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      Yes they do. See: bittorrent and webtorrent-based streaming services. My friend uses private trackers and his download speeds are unbelievable. But even on public trackers the download speeds are quite good. It does not take that many seeders to serve even a giant video file like an HD film, because even if upload speeds are a fraction of download speeds, the total upload bandwidth will be multiplied by the number of seeders. In fact, even an adequately-seeded torrent is orders of magnitudes faster to download than a youtube video or HTTP file for example. People like to keep backups of their favorite creator's works. On youtube, when a popular youtube video is taken down, it will usually be reuploaded by fans. From this, we can probably surmise that maybe 1/100000 viewers will archive a given video. That's basically enough to keep a video alive forever on bittorrent, even throughout times of peak viewership as downloaders will also seed the chunks that they have.
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        > Yes they do. See: bittorrent and webtorrent-based streaming services. No, people do not have crazy upload bandwidth. A private BitTorrent tracker group is immaterial. They're maintaining ad hoc infrastructure just by leaving a machine on 24/7 and maintaining favorable U/D ratios. Many groups also maintain seed boxes. This doesn't apply to the population at large. Most people are on phones or laptops on WiFi. They're not running 24/7 and in the case of phones a background service isn't even viable. Many people are on CGNAT and can't "serve" data without some intermediary infrastructure. As for retention, that's a pipe dream. A torrent more than a few years old may as well not exist unless it is extremely popular and maintains its popularity. There's innumerable dead torrents with no seeders.
        cowtools 4y ago
        >This doesn't apply to the population at large. Most people are on phones or laptops on WiFi. They're not running 24/7 and in the case of phones a background service isn't even viable. They don't need to serve 24/7, they just need to be available 24/7. Do people not have their phones on and connected to the internet 24/7 in case they receive a message? For social media, most people just share text posts, pictures or a few small videos. BitTorrent is a worst-case scenario where it would be only used for large files like movies. >Many people are on CGNAT and can't "serve" data without some intermediary infrastructure. There are ways to get around CGNAT without STUN/TURN. >As for retention, that's a pipe dream. A torrent more than a few years old may as well not exist unless it is extremely popular and maintains its popularity. There's innumerable dead torrents with no seeders. This is desirable behavior in social media. Popular content will have longer retention, unpopular content will have shorter retention. Web forums like this one emulate a "fake" version of this with the weighted voting/time system that favors upvoted posts and disfavors old posts.
        giantrobot 4y ago
        > Do people not have their phones on and connected to the internet 24/7 in case they receive a message? A device able to receive a notification is not the same as listening on a socket 24/7. Push notifications on mobile go through the platform's push notification system lest they kill the device's battery. A push notification doesn't wake up a device and power up all the radios to stream masses of data. Apps on mobile devices can be killed at any time, they're extremely unreliable as servers of content. Laptops are little better as servers of content. I don't understand why you'd want social media content to only favor popular and recent content. Why would you want a built-in memory hole in the system?

k__ 4y ago

I think, this is the main problem. Nobody really wants to host other peoples stuff, especially not on their desktop or smartphone. That's where Filecoin comes in. But yes, I think the Filecoin model is to heavy weight right now.

cowtools 4y ago
people have extra storage and bandwidth that they don't need. Anything that the public decides not to rehost is not worth being published.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  People do not have extra upload bandwidth to stream video. Plus the whole CGNAT issue of getting to a home device.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    Yes they do. See: bittorrent and webtorrent-based streaming services. My friend uses private trackers and his download speeds are unbelievable. But even on public trackers the download speeds are quite good. It does not take that many seeders to serve even a giant video file like an HD film, because even if upload speeds are a fraction of download speeds, the total upload bandwidth will be multiplied by the number of seeders. In fact, even an adequately-seeded torrent is orders of magnitudes faster to download than a youtube video or HTTP file for example. People like to keep backups of their favorite creator's works. On youtube, when a popular youtube video is taken down, it will usually be reuploaded by fans. From this, we can probably surmise that maybe 1/100000 viewers will archive a given video. That's basically enough to keep a video alive forever on bittorrent, even throughout times of peak viewership as downloaders will also seed the chunks that they have.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      > Yes they do. See: bittorrent and webtorrent-based streaming services. No, people do not have crazy upload bandwidth. A private BitTorrent tracker group is immaterial. They're maintaining ad hoc infrastructure just by leaving a machine on 24/7 and maintaining favorable U/D ratios. Many groups also maintain seed boxes. This doesn't apply to the population at large. Most people are on phones or laptops on WiFi. They're not running 24/7 and in the case of phones a background service isn't even viable. Many people are on CGNAT and can't "serve" data without some intermediary infrastructure. As for retention, that's a pipe dream. A torrent more than a few years old may as well not exist unless it is extremely popular and maintains its popularity. There's innumerable dead torrents with no seeders.
      - cowtools 4y ago
        >This doesn't apply to the population at large. Most people are on phones or laptops on WiFi. They're not running 24/7 and in the case of phones a background service isn't even viable. They don't need to serve 24/7, they just need to be available 24/7. Do people not have their phones on and connected to the internet 24/7 in case they receive a message? For social media, most people just share text posts, pictures or a few small videos. BitTorrent is a worst-case scenario where it would be only used for large files like movies. >Many people are on CGNAT and can't "serve" data without some intermediary infrastructure. There are ways to get around CGNAT without STUN/TURN. >As for retention, that's a pipe dream. A torrent more than a few years old may as well not exist unless it is extremely popular and maintains its popularity. There's innumerable dead torrents with no seeders. This is desirable behavior in social media. Popular content will have longer retention, unpopular content will have shorter retention. Web forums like this one emulate a "fake" version of this with the weighted voting/time system that favors upvoted posts and disfavors old posts.
        giantrobot 4y ago
        > Do people not have their phones on and connected to the internet 24/7 in case they receive a message? A device able to receive a notification is not the same as listening on a socket 24/7. Push notifications on mobile go through the platform's push notification system lest they kill the device's battery. A push notification doesn't wake up a device and power up all the radios to stream masses of data. Apps on mobile devices can be killed at any time, they're extremely unreliable as servers of content. Laptops are little better as servers of content. I don't understand why you'd want social media content to only favor popular and recent content. Why would you want a built-in memory hole in the system?