1. It is relying on IPFS, which is a decentralied file storage system. IPFS is interesting for orthogonal reasons (which I will discuss below), but there is an insoluble flaw of decentralized file storage in that copyrighted content illegally distributed without compensating the copyright owner, can't be forceably removed from all nodes, and thus the protocol ends up banned by hosts[1].
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I received a reply from Juan Bennet (author of IPFS) and he referred me to the following:
- IPFS has as a design requirement that nodes be able to only store and/or distribute content they explicitly want to store and/or distribute. This means that computers that run IPFS nodes do not have to host "other people's stuff", which is a very important thing when you consider that lots of content in the internet is -- in some for or other -- illegal under certain jurisdictions.
- IPFS nodes will be able to express policies, and subscribe to network allow/denylists and policies that express content storage and distribution requirements. This way, users and groups can express what content should or should not be stored and/or distributed. This is required by users to (a) comply with legal constraints in their respective countries, (b) required by users with stricter codes of conduct (i.e. content that is legal but undesired by a group -- e.g. a childrens website).
Question and Answers:
Q: When I add content, what happens?
A: It is stored in your local node, and made available to other nodes in your network, via advertising it on the routing system (i.e. the IPFS-DHT). The content is not sent to other nodes until they explicitly request it, though of course some content may already exist in the system (content-addressing).
I don't see how that solves the problem that IPFS is a protocol that enables people to advertising the availability of illegal content on the DHT, and then illegal content can move to new ephemeral nodes, i.e. Whack-A-Mole. Thus authorities are eventually very likely to regulate Hosts and tell them that by running IPFS they are providing hosting for a DHT which routes illegal content. IPFS can infringe the millions of indie artists who struggle to earn an income.
Also as pointed out in that thread, then there is very low guarantee that any data is backed up by the system or that the other desired properties of content being cached closer those who need it will be achieved.
Decentralized file storage requires fungibility of data, but this can't be attained without BOTH a block chain for recording the policies of content owners and algorithms that automatically detect which content infringes other content.