The Next Information Superhighway
Disclaimer: I am not associated with IPFS. Just a follower of the project. Feel free to report any inaccuracies or misinformation. Sources in the comments below.
In a majority of the world, streets are the paths between where we are and where we want to go. When visiting a new city for the first time, we expect a clear list of signs, directions, and visuals cues to help us navigate our journey.
When using Google Maps, you are given a linear list of instructions to get to your final destination: Left on 5th St > Right on Elm St > Destination
These instructions have become accepted into society and gives everyone a common method to follow. That said, this isn’t true everywhere in the world.
In some parts of Japan, everything is opposite. They don’t have street names, but instead have names for the blocks themselves. Rather than indicators, streets are simply the empty space between the blocks that people drive on. Houses are identified on the block of land in which they sit, not the intersection of their streets.
Navigating the Digital World
In the digital world, the internet works through a conceptual framework similar to Google Maps. To increase adoption and give a visual analogy of the internet during the 1990’s, many people began to reference the online world as the “Information Superhighway”.
Instead of gravel roads, large corporations began laying down fiber-optic cables across the world, allowing new users a direct path to connect and communicate. As traffic increased and the desire to explore this new world expanded, centralized entities began to grow in dominance.
Distributed No More
Skyscrapers like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and Facebook were created to help individuals navigate this world more efficiently. Instead of storing, receiving, or sending information directly with each other, these entities offered an alternative solution to increase speed and interaction.
Similar to Toll Roads, these skyscrapers have become unavoidable intermediaries separating individuals from each other. In addition to money, these companies began attaining alternative methods of compensation like our personal data, attention, and information (Facebook + Google). Without a better system in place, people have accepted these expenses of transportation.
This ecosystem has worked for many decades, but many believe centralization is becoming too powerful. This overwhelming dependence on the ‘Superhighway” is forcing alternative systems of transportation, navigation, and exploration.
The Next Information Superhighway isn’t a Highway
Similar to Japan’s block-based addressing system, a new way of navigating the online world called the Interplanetary File System is being developed. Instead of HTTP (the location-based protocol we use every day to surf the world wide web), IPFS is a content-based protocol. If HTTP is Google Maps for helping you get where you want, IPFS is InstaCart delivering exactly what you need. Instead of trying to find the paths to get somewhere (streets), IPFS simply cares about providing the destination or content itself (block).
Centralized vs. Decentralized City Analogy
One analogy to understanding IPFS is through two hypothetical cities. One with a grocery store, one without.
In City A, three people populate a small community that has one grocery store located in the center of town. When an individual wants to buy food, they must travel 10 miles to the store, and 10 miles back home. Below is an example of the three individuals using the grocery store.
- Person One travels to the store, buys a Cake, and travels home.
- Person Two travels to the store, buys a Pizza, and travels home.
- Person Three travels to the store, buys a Taco, and travels home.
In City B, the center grocery store doesn’t exist. Instead, they use a system similar to DoorDash or InstaCart where the individuals communicate directly, peer-to-peer, for food needs. Below is an example of the three individuals working together to deliver food.
- Person One would like Cake, so they make a request to the city. Person Two identifies the requests and delivers a Cake to Person One.
- Person Two would like Pizza, so they make a request to the city. Person Three identifies the request and delivers a Pizza to Person Two
- Person Three would like Tacos, so they make a request to the city. Person One identifies the request and delivers a Tacos to Person Three.
In City A, the input is 60 miles of travel (10 miles to the Grocery store for each person in both directions). In City B, the input is 42.42 miles of travel (14.14 miles for each delivery). In each City, the output is the same: Pizza, Tacos, and Cake.
Infinite Expansion
While this example explores a more efficient system, at scale it is even more apparent.
In the digital world, we have the ability to hold portions of an item (data) without holding the entire item itself (file). For example, holding just the icing to a cake, bread to a pizza, or meat to a taco. The fact that these items can be subdivided means that not everyone in the city has to hold an entire item to be helpful. It is possible to receive three portions of a pizza from three different people. If one person is better, faster, or more efficient at sending pizza, that is what the city will request of them.
In addition to portions of items, as more people decide to enter this city, more connecting roads are built and an exponential amount of routes are created.
More Than Math
More than the math itself, City B protects the city from censorship and risk of dependence on a third party. At any point in time, the grocery store can choose to raise prices by 3x. An any point in time, the road to the store can be blocked because of too much traffic. At any point in time, the grocery store can close down and nobody has access to food. IPFS protects against all three of these situations.
Conclusion
The main obstacle with the “Information Superhighway” is found directly in the name itself. A singular ‘highway’ of getting people from one place to the other is simply not the most efficient system anymore. Collectively and directly, with IPFS we now have the ability to create our own highways to navigate this world and future worlds to come.
