
Ask HN: How does IPFS help the interplanetary Internet of the future? - DavidPiper
IPFS (Interplanetary File System) is marketed as a New Internet: an HTTP replacement.<p>Content hashing, deduplication, data resilience&#x2F;permanence, and P2P content downloads&#x2F;uploads are all excellent features, and IPNS is a layer on top that gives the system a more human interface.<p>However to me this feature set makes IPFS sounds like a supercharged CDN, rather than a new kind of Internet.<p>If we&#x27;re going to set up a lunar base, or start a civilisation on Mars, is IPFS actually going to make connecting them to the Internet easier? (Assuming connecting the networks of the Moon, Mars and Earth is something we want to do.) Is it going to improve our&#x2F;their experience of the Internet?<p>How well does IPFS actually solve (or help solve) the problems of connecting and maintaining an Internet distributed across huge amounts of open space?
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paktek123
Yes you are correct about the supercharged cdn part. I think it can help in a
way that you don't need the server to be hosted in a nearby location as long
as a peer/peers have the hashes you request. This however will only work for
read only access.

You can imagine say a satellite (or multiple satellites) between Mars and moon
is a peer that contains hashes to your website content. Rather than make the
full trip to earth you can just get that hash from the satellite instead
drastically decreasing load times.

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ffwacom
IPFS is overrated, if we are going truly decentralised hosting for files then
something like sia, or whatever blockchain crap that incentivises users to
actually store the file, would be better longterm. An easy wrapper around
BitTorrent would be of more value than IPFS.

Wouldn’t worry about interplanetary shit, it’s marketing bs.

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asdkhadsj
> if we are going truly decentralised hosting for files then something like
> sia, or whatever blockchain crap that incentivises users to actually store
> the file, would be better longterm.

If I understand you, you're describing a problem that IPFS is not intending to
solve.

OP is right, IPFS is _(tasked with being a)_ largely a supercharged, local-
first CDN. The thought is that the web as it is designed is not scalable, and
seamless locality of the data is important.

Personally I agree with that, it's a bit silly that we download from non-local
sources constantly. However long term storage as you cite is not something
that IPFS aims to be. Nor is it a problem I think inherently needs solving.

In your view, why do we need a permanent internet? What is that solving, and
who is hosting it?

