Comment by rhodey
7 hours ago
I think something like IPFS is definitely needed. There is nothing stopping you from distributing a webapp on bittorrent but you'll also need to add a README for instructions on how to run the webapp on localhost so a browser can render it. So thats not something that any non-technical user wants to do.
Arguably that's a browser shortcoming that applies equally to IPFS (as well as all the other "alternative" internet protocols). (But yes I realize IPFS is a much better fit for the purpose when you dig into the details.)
Can you share potential webapp use cases that would rely on IPFS or using IPFS for referencing resources would be an improvement? Perhaps my mental has gaps on this topic, and my thoughts and assertions could be incorrect.
The arguments for "reproducible builds" are strong and so think reproducible builds but for something that can be loaded in the browser. Browser is a big deal because its a sandbox also. For example Signal could be a webapp if we had content addressable hashing and it would be sandboxed.
Content-addressable storage as a whole is a non-starter with non-technical users.
I don't understand. Billions of non-technical users are loading URLs like `https://cdn.foo/?guid=deadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeef` all the time. Why would they care if those URLs became `ipfs://deadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeef` instead?
The number of normies visiting urls directly from a CDN is a rounding error.
Non technical users like pronounceable domain names. It's why we aren't just using IP addresses.
CAS is intimidating to non-technical types.