My understanding is dual technology will be fully functional:
(1) The original WebTorrent protocol + WebTorrent network with > 1000 nodes.
(2) In order to scale, they added pinning files on IPFS by content providers running an IPFS node.
webtorrent doesn't work with classic bittorrent clients either, so this will be interesting to see how this is tackled.
the major swarms on new content aren't useable atm.
again, just interesting to see where this goes, in theory it could be awesome and deliver, right now, it is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors, so will wait and see.
ipfs pinning and then serving via a web gateway is just plain old vanilla web serving and has zero to do with ipfs. all of the ipfs advantages come from using ipfs via ipfs, not http.
the only thing you get out of ipfsVIAhttp is that there are no files on the server where the http terminates, so can ignore dmca takedown notices as there are no files.
I believe you can run your own ipfs node
yeah, that is correct, ipfs != bittorrent...
the whole thing is supposed to be webrtc, streaming content from the bittorrent swarms.
right now it is just vidlocker without all the ads and popups - not that awesome.
The only thing you get here is active devs with idea, vision and knowledge how to combine latest tech in working service all baked with cryptocurrency as means of payment for quick, clean and addfree service.
Compared to semyfinished shitcoins or usless ICO's wich came with buggy waporware this one is pretty awesome to me.