With so many Filecoin mining scams, is there much room for future development of IPFS cloud storage?

In fact, many people should know about the hype about IPFS. This hype has been going on since 2018 and has not stopped until now. The author can’t remember how many people have been defrauded and bankrupted by the so-called mining machine sellers. Of course, there are still many such scams until now, and there is no sign of stopping.

As for cloud storage, I don't have any deep understanding of it. But when it comes to peer-to-peer downloading, or the development of various downloading technologies, I can say that I can still do some popular science here. Early downloads were all in C/S mode, that is, the connection between the client and the server, but this mode was inefficient and prone to disconnection, requiring re-downloading. Therefore, a download mode that can resume downloading appeared, such as software like flashget. Later, software like bittorrent appeared, which is what we call P2P download software. I have come into contact with similar software when I was in the third grade of junior high school. For example, Thunder is the most well-known one in China. Of course, we can simply regard Thunder's mode as a user-server mode. Therefore, when Thunder later promoted its technical reserves in peer-to-peer transmission, I actually believed it. Of course, Wanke Cloud is not doing very well, and now they are doing Thunder Chain, similar to the path of Alibaba and Baidu, but that's another story.

The biggest problem with P2P downloading in the past was the user sharing problem. To put it simply, after downloading files with Thunder, most users would choose to close the software and stop uploading to prevent taking up too much bandwidth. This method also caused the death of some file seeds, that is, the seed file could not be pieced together into a complete file from various P2P sharers. Although the subsequent magnetic link avoided this situation to a certain extent, the slow download speed was a difficult problem to solve.

Download technology can be said to be the basis of file transfer and storage, and it is also crucial for the subsequent evolution. Later, cloud services appeared. Amazon is a leader in this regard and has moved many services to the cloud. In fact, the cloud is simply understood as a server cluster, and these server clusters have multiple backups, and then provide users with standard network virtual services, such as cloud servers, etc., so the files are stored in the cloud. In simple terms, for example, if a cloud service cluster is established in the computer room of a telecommunications operator, the corresponding user access speed will be much faster. Not only that, saving files on the cloud can actually prevent the problem that the files cannot be downloaded by users. A file may be saved on different clouds, and then when downloading, multiple thread transmission can ensure both download speed and file stability. This seems to be a relatively good solution, but there is a problem here, that is, the problem of file tampering and file duplication and redundancy, which will make the files on the cloud more bloated to a certain extent and occupy a lot of resources. Similarly, it is difficult for the cloud to achieve more functions, such as storing a bunch of pirated movies and music.

Now it seems that IPFS, or filecoin, does not actually solve too many Internet file storage problems, but rather decentralizes these storages. That is to say, each node can store files and contribute bandwidth to the network to ensure the integrity of the files, while reducing storage costs. In fact, the key here is to reduce storage costs, because the conditions of each node are different. If the cost of storing a file in the cloud is similar to that of storing it on the IPFS network, then for users, both are fine. IPFS will not be very attractive. Moreover, Internet files are generally not particularly valuable and need to be saved. Because thousands of websites and servers have invisibly increased the decentralization of file storage, users only need to use search engines to find them. In this case, if IPFS cannot reduce the cost of storing files, it obviously has no advantage.

Then the main advantage of IPFS seems to be in the blockchain field. For example, it can save some files worthy of attention (block ledgers of important projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum). In fact, this is also a very good application. At the same time, due to the stability of IPFS, similar applications will explode in the future. If the storage cost cannot be reduced, then IPFS is facing a dangerous situation. For example, let's assume that such a situation occurs: the price of filecoin skyrocketed, each coin was as high as 500-1000 yuan, but all storage nodes on the chain can only store 10P of documents. At this time, what may happen is that the storage cost is high, which will affect the normal operation of the IPFS network to a certain extent. Either the coin price falls, or the storage space increases to meet user needs. Is there a third solution?

Theoretically, yes, that is to store valuable files so that users are willing to pay for storage, such as copyrighted music, software, movies, etc., and use them for secondary development, and a charging system is born, because these copyrighted files can better protect the rights of paying users and prevent illegal access, which will greatly enhance the quality of files on the IPFS chain, which is a good thing to a certain extent. Of course, this is only limited to theory, because if someone sees this business opportunity and plans to make a chain similar to IPFS, then they can also do this, and the cost may be lower, which also provides invisible competitive pressure for IPFS.

Many people who buy mining machines promote IPFS or filecoin as an important Internet protocol comparable to HTTP in the future. However, the most important thing is that HTTP has achieved irreplaceable and self-owned network effects, that is, the strong will always be strong. However, for IPFS, the cloud storage field is not only IPFS. For example, projects such as siacoin and storj are actually potential competitors. Even the Wanke Cloud hardware developed by Xunlei itself can actually realize cloud storage functions to a certain extent. Now private cloud services and various NAS network disks are gradually emerging. Even adding some IoT home functions to make open source home systems like homeassistant is actually a good application scenario. Cloud storage is just one of the functions. In addition, this year, BAT Internet giants have already laid out cloud storage businesses, such as Baidu Cloud Disk, Tencent Micro Cloud and other products. Although such products are centralized to a certain extent, they have attracted many users to put files on them due to a certain amount of free storage space. The emergence of many alternative products has made decentralized cloud storage not so hot, and all of these will reduce the application scenarios of IPFS. People have public clouds and private clouds, and the cost of building them is also much lower.

Summarize

In fact, for IPFS, the key factor cannot be simply placed on cloud storage, because no matter whether it is the traditional model, such as the server or the current centralized cloud storage service, home NAS and other models, they can actually meet the different needs of users in different scenarios to a certain extent. In this way, if IPFS focuses on Internet file transmission or storage, it can only break through the storage space point, and should pay more attention to the development of the chain process of valuable files. This is like the high transaction fees of Bitcoin now. There are certain reasons why people are willing to pay for the high transaction fees of Bitcoin. This is also the core factor that makes Bitcoin irreplaceable so far. After this level, the money spent is not so important, because there are more worthy scenarios to spend. To this extent, the final application of IPFS is actually still in the blockchain field, rather than replacing the HTTP protocol. If you just look at the hype, in the current lack of market heat, IPFS and filecoin will inevitably usher in a wave of hype. As for whether it can continue in the future, it depends on whether the relevant ecology can follow up. This is crucial.