Decentralized File Storage Solutions Would be Great if They Were Actually Reliable | A Rant on IPFS & Media Playability

When I first read about options like dtube and dsound I was thrilled - the sites looked great, they promised to be seamlessly integrated with Steem and they were developed by regular dudes hoping to improve upon the services and advantages of the Steem blockchain.

But while I certainly welcome the efforts and what vision these portals have brought to Steem I seem to be one of the few people that have had major issues with the reliability of the underlying IPFS file storage network or at least: I have to say these hurdles have made these media options largely unsuable for me :(

I don't expect much of a project started by some dude with a vision, heck Steemit itself is officially still in Beta. We can manage with all sorts of improvised solutions and workarounds to existing problems. The issue with these platforms however is that the most basic service they are claiming to deliver is reliably unreliable for me. If bells and whistles don't work or are postponed to be fixed, I have no problem with that. But when the actual service that is meant to set these applications apart from their competitors doesn't work in a decentralized manner I have to back off these apps entirely, they have to be able to deliver the bare minimum of what they are claiming.

Now granted, dtube has been working for me lately with every video I clicked - yay! It's a miracle I even bothered to come back and try again after so many bad attempts in the past that made me ditch the platform, but it does seem to play for me now without exception, and I sure hope it stays that way. Maybe something was fixed?

All of my old videos are gone, but the ones that are recent do play as they should, maybe I ought to give it another try and reupload everything again to dtube? Had done the same back a few months when I moved all my videos to dlive, as it became apparent that dtube didnt reliably work for me in playing back my content and dlive worked better. Now that dlive has bailed on Steem and dtube has reset most of my uploads I am at the decision crossroads again as to where to continue my media work. Moving everything to dtube a second time in the hopes it will keep on playing in the future?

Trying to discern the pattern here is rather complicated but the more I heard that other people seem to have the same issues the less I felt inclined to continue using these services. It's all well and good to have my media work stored in a decentralized manner but if it can't easily be accessed in a reliable fashion than the videos are really worth nothing for humanity, as harsh as it may sound. And sadly, though dtube seems way better than it has been for me, dsound is still as unreliable as I remember it, refusing to play my old tracks, or even recent ones by other artists - regardless of upload size, date or quality.

For dsound this hurts especially: I usually get stopped out from listening to a track smack in the middle of it! It's like the DJ shut his turntables off in the midst of a set, a nightmare. And as a music lover it really pains me to jump through these extra hurdles in order to find new music or to listen to what other musicians have produced to a degree that I sometimes catch myself looking for the soundcloud link instead just to take some of the inherent pain of medial unreliability away...

Some of my friends have come and started using dsound only to then leave it after a short while because "my tracks don't play back, and if that doesn't work then why should I use that platform for my music?"

Right?

Embed me already!

Since this is turning into somewhat of a cranky rant I want to point out how important it is for videos and media content in general to be embedded seamlessly. Anyone who has ever used facebook in the past can appreciate that a video can instantly be played by anyone right there on the wall where it has been posted without any extra effort. Soundcloud works similarly, giving me the option to post a track of mine for you to play right here on the blog post instead of sending you to an external page in a new tab.

So when I started using dtube and dsound months ago I felt the missing feature of an embed option on my wall has mounted signifcant hurdles to people actually watching the video: Whenever I see other people's posts for dtube I die a little bit inside because I still have to make that jump over to that other platform and then hope it will actually load when usually most of the times it doesn't.

Building a strong fanbase should be easier by simply allowing people to click the damn box and then see the content play right where they are, just like this:

Am I being audacious in demanding too much from a free service?

I certainly don't hope so. I can gladly pass on bonus features, a prime layout, a visual closeness to youtube or any other feature as long as the service that this site is made for actually works and delivers what it promises. Reliably. Since both dsound and dtube have had these recurring problems here for me I have started suspecting that it's not the services like dsound and dtube but actually the underlying IPFS network that somehow hinders the data transfer. Hopefully it may eventually get better... but when will that be?

And the curious thing is wherever I turn online I only ever read how awesome and gamechanging this new file network is, and noone else seems to complain abpout unreliability. And I really want to believe that it is the solution to file storage, but from what I experienced using different browsers and computers.... I don't think mass adoption will come if artists can't be absolutely certain that their content will actually play in a manner conducive for the material to go viral, easy accessible.

As much as youtube has been criticized and overstepping their role in recent years... they have really understood that people want stuff to work first and foremost, and that even the most audacious drawbacks to using a service will be forgiven and accepted as long as the core service works reliably, every single day.

I'm curious: What are your experiences with services like dsound and dtube? Have they changed in their reliability for you after the recent resets? Do they play for you always and all the time? And if so, are you on WIFI or have any other great idea in regards to this issue?

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