We've been playing a lot recently with the concept of IPFS websites.
We even created a plugin (https://github.com/almonit/almonit-plugin - unreleased officially yet!) for websites that combine IPFS with ENS (a decentralized DNS). Our repository contains a list of decentralized websites using this method. We found about 20 so far.
Technically, IPFS work well for us, but we made sure to have a server seeding our website at all times (where we suffer similar problems like the author of the post describes).
Even then, we still had to make sure that the website is available in all main gateways, since most people don't run their own IPFS daemon. The strange part is that sometimes content is available in one gateway, but not in others. Or sometimes it's available in one gateway, but we can't get it on our local IPFS node.
I understand that IPFS is not a blockchain, so I can't expect all the nodes to have the same content. But I do expect the main gateways to communicate more directly with each other.
Conceptually, IPSF websites are a bit like sending your website to someone via an unreliable slow mail; i.e., it's not that attractive. You can make it somehow more dynamic, using what they call IPNS (it allows you to update your content). But the result is so slow, that even the most devoted monk would lose his patience eventually.
A workaround is using a decentralized name system, like ENS.
This works very well, but the result are still static websites. No comments or anything really interesting happening.
Those websites are censorship-resistance and very robust, you don't have to worry about ddos attacks. But then again, how many people worry about such things?
That said, I still like the concept of IPFS. We are exploring a few options to add dynamic behavior to that now, where the dream is to mimic existing services in a decentralized way.
Surely, they won't work as well, but the pro would be that it will be controlled by the users, and that they will be able to survive financially with no ads.
We even created a plugin (https://github.com/almonit/almonit-plugin - unreleased officially yet!) for websites that combine IPFS with ENS (a decentralized DNS). Our repository contains a list of decentralized websites using this method. We found about 20 so far.
Technically, IPFS work well for us, but we made sure to have a server seeding our website at all times (where we suffer similar problems like the author of the post describes).
Even then, we still had to make sure that the website is available in all main gateways, since most people don't run their own IPFS daemon. The strange part is that sometimes content is available in one gateway, but not in others. Or sometimes it's available in one gateway, but we can't get it on our local IPFS node.
I understand that IPFS is not a blockchain, so I can't expect all the nodes to have the same content. But I do expect the main gateways to communicate more directly with each other.
Conceptually, IPSF websites are a bit like sending your website to someone via an unreliable slow mail; i.e., it's not that attractive. You can make it somehow more dynamic, using what they call IPNS (it allows you to update your content). But the result is so slow, that even the most devoted monk would lose his patience eventually.
A workaround is using a decentralized name system, like ENS.
This works very well, but the result are still static websites. No comments or anything really interesting happening.
Those websites are censorship-resistance and very robust, you don't have to worry about ddos attacks. But then again, how many people worry about such things?
That said, I still like the concept of IPFS. We are exploring a few options to add dynamic behavior to that now, where the dream is to mimic existing services in a decentralized way.
Surely, they won't work as well, but the pro would be that it will be controlled by the users, and that they will be able to survive financially with no ads.