Decentralized Technology in Practice: Social and technical resilience in IPFS

Abstract

The “Interplanetary File System” (IPFS) refers to a peer-to-peer content addressing protocol that is designed to be “upgradeable, resilient, and more open”. [1] In conjunction with “Filecoin”, a blockchain-based data storage marketplace, the aim of this technology is to offer people digital infrastructure that decentralized from central, corporate control, to store and manage their data. This paper investigates socio-technical resilience as adaptability and transformability under threat for participants in IPFS in practice as a peer-to-peer digital infrastructure. I find that developer conceptions of “resilience” in this system relate to adaptability of the network against isolation or split. Yet, resilience for those using IPFS relates to data integrity, in line with the preferences and local context of the provider of that data. I employ qualitative research methods to investigate why and how people use the network, and in what ways it meets the needs of their contexts and purposes, or in some cases, falls short. I find that while significant emphasis is placed on the technical resilience of this infrastructure, these tools remain logically fractured at the social coordination layer that guides processes of data ownership, governance, and storage, and this limits the resilience of the network to serve people's needs in their local context. I then propose examples of institutional infrastructural frameworks that could provide participatory data governance patterns to help people collectively organize their use of decentralized digital infrastructure for greater resilience in IPFS and Filecoin. Finally, I outline further research directions to improve resilience in decentralized data storage infrastructure.