this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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IPFS is basically fancy torrents. Pieces of media are accessed by the hash of their content and some metadata. It's neat, because it can be linked as a URL/URI similar to stuff hosted on the regular web. But, and the main website doesn't really make that clear AT ALL, all content is only available for as long as there are people interested in it. You access a file and distribute it to others from then on. After a while, people move on and old data is deleted from their cache, etc. Unless you 'pin' a piece of content and STORE IT YOURSELF, there is no guarantee it will still be available even 5 minutes after you delete it from your device.
In short: The website makes it seem as if IPFS is this big black hole of infinite and immutable storage when it actually is highly fragile. It can be great if used correctly though, for example if instances decide to keep an archive of successful posts and thereby share the load of storage and distribution. But because every IPFS member is also a distributor, the same legal problems that arise from torrent use will rear their heads again. So better not watch movies or browse a sub with illegal bits if they are hosted on IPFS. IPFS is not built for privacy either, but that's a problem many p2p projects have.