IPFS is useful to blockchain projects because of the permanence of content hashes. That doesn’t mean it’s not also useful to many others. QRI is using it as the publishing medium and backing store for all kinds of data sets, for example. No blockchain, just shared storage across interested parties.
You make a really good point about communicating readiness - the author of the post is expecting more from pre-alpha software than it is ready to provide.
IPFS has had public releases since 2015 with rhetoric implying general utility, not to mention $300M in funding. If it’s still “pre-alpha software” that’s not a mere communications problem.
Er, I meant pre-beta not pre-alpha. It's still in development. Sounds like the core API is pretty much settled and not expected to change (much).
Building a platform is not like building an app. And a platform that changes significant parts of internet infrastructure is different from just building any platform. I worked on Firefox for 13 years... the internet is a harsh and fickle thing.
That said, people are using IPFS with millions of users today.
I very much agree about the rhetoric. The homepage is polished, and speaks to a bunch of features that are possible to varying extents in varying environments, but not easy to demonstrate. Bandwidth savings is a good example of this.
You make a really good point about communicating readiness - the author of the post is expecting more from pre-alpha software than it is ready to provide.