Yes, but keep in mind that, like BitTorrent, IPFS also includes a thing where nodes are given preferential treatment based on seed/leech ratio - so you're incentivized to help host content, and just the stuff you can share while downloading yourself might not be enough.

So yes, they will "unpin any site as soon as it becomes a resource drain" unless they're feeling particularly charitable - but that's exactly how it works with torrents, too! Generally you set up rules like "seed until a maximum up/down ratio is reached for that file, then don't bother", "restrict uploads to a certain maximum speed and/or certain maximum amount of data per day", that kind of thing. I figure you'd basically have an automatically-managed cache of limited size that you'd use to hold the stuff you were liking-to-pin, and stuff that was judged to be no longer worth seeding would get kicked off, as would old/unpopular content if the cache had filled up and you were shuffling in new content.

So unpinning anything that becomes a significant resource drain is also - at least in the relatively-short-to-medium-term - fully compatible with other people being willing to "like" your site to pin it, if not perpetually, than for an extended period of time.

>IPFS also includes a thing where nodes are given preferential treatment based on seed/leech ratio - so you're incentivized to help host content

so you're disincentivized from using the service

Inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist. - George Carlin.

The "pin" could be the new form of "bookmark" where you're almost guaranteed to never loose the page that you bookmarked

There's plenty of media/webpages I'd love to "save offline" on WiFi so I could then later access them without having to pay for mobile data (or access them at all on flights/road trips through areas with no phone service)

(Note that I am aware that for many pages you can, in fact, do this already. Downloading HTML is a thing. I just meant that since I can already do this, it would be nice if I could both do this and have it integrate seamlessly with my browser for navigating links and host those files for other people while on WiFi I was at it)

This is the dream all us IPFS/decentralization nuthouses are chasing.

Idunno, "Save as HTML..." seems to go for that dream pretty well. And lots of other sites utilize service workers fairly well to work offline.

Save as HTML is often completely broken. Especially when javascript injects <script> tags to load even more javascript. You're better off by using archive.org's wayback machine.

There is a number of other offline tools available (google "archive team warc ecosystem"), they just need better integration.

I don't know what your personal circumstances are, but your tone here sounds like you need to take some time away from the internet, for your own mental health.

It's a huge oversimplification to describe people in just those terms. People are complicated and so are their motivations, and it's hard to tell in advance which new things will be successful or not.

For example, I once worked for a guy who hadn't heard of open source and, when I described the concept to him, couldn't wrap his brain around why so many people would take the time to write and maintain a bunch of software and then just give it away. This is not the work product of "evil and/or lazy" people.

I don't think it's a mental health issue for me that the tragedy of the commons extends to the Internet. This is not about "not knowing", this is about prioritizing self interest and actively abusing the system.

We know these two things happen, consistently. We have failed to account for them in much of the foundations of the Internet - it's the assumption of benevolent cooperation. Which was great for ARPAnet, but simply doesn't work in the wild. We have 20+ years of proof.

We cannot continue to put our heads in the sand and ignore that, because for better or worse, the Internet has become a major force shaping society.

The idea that naivete translates into mental health is certainly fascinating, but I believe the colloquial translation for that is "ignorance is bliss".

The tragedy of the commons depends a lot on the nature of the commons. People can and do work together to manage common resources. You can check out the work of Elinor Ostrom for some examples.

Not evil and/or lazy so much as self serving.