Thanks! We've been making a lot of updates to the documentation to make it easier to use - so glad it feels easy to follow!
I'll follow up on the Pinata docs example. There are a lot of options for how to persist content in the IPFS network, and we should describe all of them (even if Pinata is one of the smoother/easier to use ones for those new to IPFS who don't want to run their own persistent node). Feel free to file an issue or PR on that docs page if you get a second and we'll help get that fixed ASAP.
That's a great idea! I know there's a project in the works to have redundant copies of the Archive stored on Filecoin, so expanding that to also make the data available for Collaborative Clusters should be totally doable. We'd have to slice the archive down into bites that small machines like yours and mine can help with though. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thank you for that info. I am still very new to IPFS but am going to try to learn more before I submit any PRs or anything like that. Is there some way to see how pinned content is distributed? Do pinning services have a standard API for talking to them?
We're actually implementing a standard Pinning API right now! You can check out the spec here (https://github.com/ipfs/pinning-services-api-spec) - currently being integrated by Pinata and soon others.
You may enjoy this HackFS Workshop from Juan Benet (creator of Filecoin) that starts pretty high level but gets much more into the details of how the Filecoin network works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P28aNAdZDi4
Correct, IPFS is not a blockchain - while both are merkle-dags ('directed acyclic graphs' of hash-linked data), blockchains have all nodes sync the state collectively, while IPFS instead shards state across the entire network (such that each node maintains its own filestore).
Nope - but used by lots of blockchains for things like off-chain storage (since having a content-addressable handle for a file that can never change is super critical for things like smart contracts)
For anyone looking at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.07747.pdf to get an estimate on the actual # of IPFS nodes, note that these tools are trying to crawl the number of nodes acting as "DHT Servers" in the Public IPFS DHT. Nodes behind home firewalls or NATs don't become DHT routers because they aren't dialable, and other large users intentionally set many of their nodes into a lower-bandwidth client mode. Also, many applications run their own private IPFS networks (like OpenBazaar for instance) and don't participate in the Public IPFS DHT, so wouldn't be reached through a crawler here.
Actually, content-based addresses is really critical for decentralized web stuff - since you can't trust a single source to name data, and instead want many different parties to participate in the same global address space in a secure and trustless manner. Check out the dweb primer for why working with a base-layer built on content addressing is so powerful: https://flyingzumwalt.gitbooks.io/decentralized-web-primer/a...
IPNS is used by many groups to create a mutable layer over IPFS (it recently got much faster in our 0.5.0 release in April), but you can also use tools like Textile, OrbitDB, or other mutable databases built on IPFS.
I read that document and it seems to me like everything in there applies to Dat also, which isn't really content-addressed. But if IPNS is fast now it seems like it could be a good replacement.
A few highlights are Fleek, Textile, Audius, 3box, Anytype, Qri, Berty, and MagicLeap! Specifically in the blockchain space, there's Peepeth, Augur, Uniswap, Civic, Arbore, and Aragon.
Our TOS applies to the IPFS HTTP Gateway where Protocol Labs run the infrastructure (bridging data in the IPFS Network to users over HTTP) to ease onboarding/development. There are many different IPFS Gateways (https://ipfs.github.io/public-gateway-checker/), with different local jurisdictions that can each choose their own TOS.
We do not and cannot control the data that each individual node is hosting in the IPFS Network. Each node can choose what they want to host - no central party can filter or blacklist content globally for the entire network. The ipfs.io Gateway is just one of many portals used to view content stored by third parties on the Internet.
That aside, we definitely don't want to 'apply copyright worldwide'. For one, it's not consistent! Trying to create a central rule for all nodes about what is and isn't "allowed" for the system as a whole doesn't work and is part of the problem with more centralized systems like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. Instead, give each node the power to decide what it does/doesn't want to host, and easy tooling to abide by local requirements/restrictions if they so choose.
Saying there's "no business value" in tools coming out of this space/building on IPFS is nonsense. Sure, the vast majority of people won't care about using a tool because it's decentralized in and of itself, but they _will_ choose tools that give them features they care about - like working better offline, having faster downloads/uploads, being more reliable and trustworthy, preserving their agency and control, etc. These implications from building a distributed system (ex able to collaborate when disconnected from central servers) are strong business reasons for folks to use one service over another, but that isn't clear from saying "it's decentralized". Look at Netflix using IPFS for faster container image distribution (business value: more productive developers - https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-02-14-improved-bitswap-for-contain...), Audius & Matters.news using IPFS to give content creators more ownership over their own data, Berty & OpenBazaar using IPFS for private messaging/marketplaces -- clearly there is business value in removing middle-men/central points of failure & control in these applications.
You absolutely can incentivize others to pin content. Check out Infura (infura.io), Pinata (pinata.cloud), Temporal (temporal.cloud), and Eternum (eternum.io) - these are all services you can pay to host your IPFS data with reasonable uptime. They have an incentive to keep your content around because you pay them to. Filecoin is a distributed solution to that (and making active progress - they have a testnet out with over 5PB of proven storage: https://filecoin.io/blog/roadmap-update-april-2020/), but you don't have to wait for that to land.
Check out Filecoin (https://filecoin.io) - token for buying/selling file storage for IPFS data. You can earn tokens for renting out your disk space and use them to purchase backup/hosting from others.
I'll follow up on the Pinata docs example. There are a lot of options for how to persist content in the IPFS network, and we should describe all of them (even if Pinata is one of the smoother/easier to use ones for those new to IPFS who don't want to run their own persistent node). Feel free to file an issue or PR on that docs page if you get a second and we'll help get that fixed ASAP.
Given interest in decentralized persistence, you may be interested in collaborative clusters which allow a group of peers to all persist each other's content: https://collab.ipfscluster.io/ & https://cluster.ipfs.io/documentation/collaborative/