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Comment by Fice | Hacker News Reader

Why depend on a centralized service when there are easy-to-use decentralized alternatives?

  $ ipfs add myfile.txt
  added QmeeLUVdiSTTKQqhWqsffYDtNvvvcTfJdotkNyi1KDEJtQ myfile.txt
  # Access via a public gateway
  $ curl https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeeLUVdiSTTKQqhWqsffYDtNvvvcTfJdotkNyi1KDEJtQ
  # or via a local node
  $ curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmeeLUVdiSTTKQqhWqsffYDtNvvvcTfJdotkNyi1KDEJtQ

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1. If you're using ipfs.io, you're using a centralized service.

2. Why is a decentralized service better than a centralized one, for this use case? It seems like neither really has an inherent advantage.

1. ipfs.io is not a critical part of the system. If it becomes unavailable, the information can still be retrieved via a local node or another public gateway.

2. With a decentralized system like IPFS, availability of the data does not depend on a single provider. Also, there are no artificial limits on data size and storage time.

This isn't for long term storage, it's for ephemeral transfers between two well defined entities. Like if I, as developer A, need to give a large binary blob to another developer B. If we are not in close enough proximity for physical media transfer, something like this might be the next quickest option. There's no need to go through the work of distributed it through the ipfs network.

TLDR; different usecases.

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