> if the user stops paying the file hosting service, another user can pick up the slack
Too much faith in someone picking up your files when a centralised host goes down. This is an important detail that for some reason is always dismissed by IPFS proponents.
If a user stops paying for hosting, and they are not hosting and pinning it themselves locally, they can't expect the file to persist indefinitely on the web. Hosting is not free.
But if another party is interested in the file, they have the option to persist the file regardless of what the original party and centralized services choose to do.
So. Let's go back to my original statement: "Otherwise it will be regular centralized storage providers with IPFS bolted on top for one or two geeks who care about it."
What does IPFS bring into the picture apart from "oh yeh, there's a near-zero chance that someone will keep hosting your file"?
There's two specific attributes that are unique to IPFS.
1 - A content addressable URI protocol that allows you to locate a file without linking to a singly-owned and named server or host. This is not the case with HTTPS URL protocol.
2 - Open source clients where multiple parties, including competing parties and individual users, can all simultaneously and permissionlessly peer-to-peer host an asset behind the content addressed URI.
And that's the problem, really. As pure tech IPFS is interesting (probably). But if it doesn't have concrete answers to user questions/problems apart from vague "yeah, maybe perhaps probably something will maybe happen", it's useless beyond a small following of hardcore geeks.
Too much faith in someone picking up your files when a centralised host goes down. This is an important detail that for some reason is always dismissed by IPFS proponents.