Ed: Hello, today we are going to discuss IPFS. Joining me is my colleague, Tadas, hello Tadas.

Tadas: Hello Ed, thank you for inviting me.

Ed: Shall we start by asking a question? How the internet works today and is there anything wrong with it?

Tadas: Well, I think we need to take a look at the history of the internet to begin with, and it starts with Web 1.0, where we had the server and the client and the client could read information from the server.

Ed: But then it went to Web 2.0, which what we currently use today. Now the user became able to send the data to the server, and what this has started was that the companies started to collect the data about the users, and not for so good purposes. And we know this from the-, all the scandals that were made public. But there is a solution for this problem and I think you know it.

Tadas: So, I believe the solution you are talking about here is Web 3.0, right? I've heard that loads of different developers are working on different solutions to solve the, the problems you mentioned and one of those alternatives is called IPFS. So, in short, what IPFS is, it's a protocol that allows users to share data directly instead of going to the central server. And, you know, when I say that, it kind of reminds me those peer-to-peer protocols, and the first peer-to-peer protocol that comes to my mind is BitTorrent. Why do you think, Tadas, we need another peer-to-peer protocol? Why can't we just use BitTorrent?

Ed: Well, I do admit that they are very similar but IPFS is implemented in a different way and it handles duplicate files better as well as it has better data distribution, and this solves my previously mentioned problems. Now, have you used IPFS yourself?

Tadas: Yeah, in fact I had. The last project I worked on was NFT marketplace and I have used IPFS quite a lot while working on this project. Now, to understand how I used IPFS we probably need to understand a little bit how NFTs can store data today. So, there are basically three different ways. First one is to store actual data on the Blockchain, now this way it is a little bit expensive. The second option is to use the traditional file storage systems, like Amazon or Microsoft, you know? But this solution basically brings us back to the issues that you just mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, right? So, the best option that we have today, that is fully decentralised, is using those decentralised protocols like IPFS, so this is how I used IPFS in, in, in my practice.

Ed: And I believe they are going to be used for more than just that and we are probably going to be seeing decentralised social networks, it being used for file sharing as well as general web applications, and that's only the beginning of its usages.

Tadas: I can't agree more, Tadas. I think we're going to see more and more IPFS usage when the network, the Web3 is going to grow, and I think especially with NFTs, you know? More people are going to be creating NFTs, more they're going to use IPFS, so I think it's going to be beneficial for everybody for an internet and I hope for humanity.

Ed: I completely agree with you.

Tadas: We talked about what IPFS is, we covered a little bit history of internet, we identified what are potential issues with the internet and how developers are trying to solve this.

IPFS: why do you need it?