eli5

whats the difference between arweave and ipfs? why choose one over the other?

They're completely different. One (IPFS) is a data retrieval protocol and one (Arweave) is a storage solution. Ideally Arweave would work with IPFS but it doesn't, which is a big pain. 1/

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Just like any pension system that may run out of sufficiently many new paying members to pay the old obligations Arweave could in principle run out of sufficient demand to store the old data. They try to ensure this is not the case, but 100 years is a long time. 4/

Arweave promises "pay now store forever (or at least 100 years)". It's a storage solution. It works like a pension fund. The idea is that future generations of storage use will cover the costs of keeping the old files around. This will work fine as long as the system is growing. But it makes me uncomfortable. 3/

IPFS guarantees that if you know what file you want and somebody has it they can give it to you. But it doesn't guarantee the file exists. Somebody needs to make sure the file continues to be stored. The nice thing is this could be you. Hence IPFS backup solutions -> https://www.clubnft.com/ 2/

great explanation, thanks! so the thought by Protocol labs was that Filecoin would be used for storage and IPFS for retrieval?