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bluesky - Re: Hi, and some comments

bluesky AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems

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  • From: hal AT finney.org
  • To: bluesky AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Hi, and some comments
  • Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 18:53:26 -0800


Wei writes:
> On Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:54:58AM -0800, Ian Clarke wrote:
> > The huge file *is* a resource, but its popularity (in proportion to its
> > size) will determine the degree to which it is replicated on Freenet, if
> > at all. You seem to be thinking in terms of providing a service to
> > producers of information, where as Freenet provides a service to
> > consumers of information. From this point of view, all information is a
> > resource (the value of which is determined by popularity).
>
> By resources I meant storage space and bandwidth, rather than content. Who
> will be paying for them in Freenet? Who will be paying for content is a
> whole other issue which probably deserves a seperate mailing list to talk
> about.
>
> > Most people in the world today have 28.8k or 33.6k modems - and pay for
> > internet connectivity by the minute, that is hardly what I would
> > describe as a surplus of bandwidth.
>
> Those people obviously will not be participating as storage servers. But
> there are a lot of people with broadband Internet connections, and they
> will provide sufficient supply to ensure very low publication costs.

I think there are two uses for money being discussed here: one is to
repay those who are offering storage space and bandwidth for their time
and expense; and the other is to "keep score" and provide a mechanism
for deciding which data to keep and which to drop.

If storage and bandwidth are in sufficient supply that publication costs
will be very low, do we really have to worry that no one will pay for
them in Freenet? Isn't it likely that people will simply offer them
for free, out of altruistic reasons, since it costs them very little,
just as they now leave Napster running? I don't think that Freenet
will necessarily lack for storage space and bandwidth even though people
aren't paid for them.

As for the score-keeping role of money, Freenet proposes to use direct
measures of popularity. While these can be manipulated, if the number
of people who want to do so is a small percentage, the goal is that the
network as a whole will not be too much affected. (It would be good to
see some calculations along these lines, though.)

BTW OpenP2P has an article challenging the notion that charging for
resources a la MojoNation makes sense, Clay Shirky's "In Praise of
Freeloading" [1], with a response by MN's Jim McCoy [2].

Hal

[1] http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/01/shirky_freeloading.html
[2] http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/01/11/mojo.html




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