I’m new to IPFS and I’m trying to get a grasp on the fundamentals. After reading the guides and documentation I still have one question:
If you want to store a file on IPFS, you are essentially storing it on your machine, and allowing it to be accessed across the network. If other people are interested in your file, it will also be stored on their machine.
What if you want to store a file on the network, but not on the machine on which you are running IPFS, so that you can access it later from somewhere else? Is this possible? In this case, is there payment required, such as on platforms like swarm for example?
There is no built-in payment for IPFS, so if you do not want to pin content yourself, you will have to pay a third-party. In the future that will probably most easily be done with Filecoin, but from my understanding publicly usable filecoin network is a ways away. In the mean-time you will have to explore third-party pinning services.
Self shill:
My company and I run an IPFS usability platform, that offers a multitude of capabilities, which include paid for pinning. In the mean-time its in beta and free to use (although there will be a free usage tier after beta is over). https://github.com/RTradeLtd/Temporal web interface is available at https://nuts.rtradetechnologies.com:6771 (not account registration has a small bug, so even if it says your account failed to create, it will still be created and you may log in with it). If you have questions feel free to reach out to us on our telegram chat https://t.me/RTradeTEMPORAL