We talked about the need for a library in our previous article (which you can read here) — and how you will soon be able to support ours. Before the crazy development process is shared with a larger public, it would do well to step back and look at how we got here.

It is no news that the internet has changed the world around us. In 2017, for the first time in history, there were more people in the world using Internet than not. The internet has experienced a 26 000% growth in the last 22 years (16 million users in 1995; 4.16 billion in 2017). Each of these 4 160 000 000 people has access to an unimaginably large amount of information. Sure, most people use it to browse Facebook or play online games, but the information is at our fingertips. If you want to find out the temperature of the star closest to Sun[1] or why cats love ice-cream but couldn’t care less about candy[2], you don’t have to call your scientist grandma or go ask your neighbour because he has five cats. You go online, ask the machine a question, and the machine throws the answer back at you.

We all know this. So why are we not participating in this active information-sharing process with our own creations?

Because it is often difficult to do so.

Since the nineties, two main types of file-sharing solutions have existed: centralized (like Dropbox or Megaupload) and decentralized (like BitTorrent or eDonkey before that).

Centralized systems are great for private secure use and for sharing a link with a few close friends. However, as soon as you want to provide your work to wider public, several issues arise. There are limits for how many people can download the specific work in an hour or in a day. There are file-size limits. File storage platforms ask the user to pay for download speed.

So, let’s put the file in a decentralized system and share with anyone interested? The so-called peer-to-peer networks are able to exist because millions of people use their devices and their bandwidth to share useful content. They offer the technical backing in exchange for useful files. However, these systems often run into their own difficulties. It is hard to back up data and to provide security. The system is often unstable: if the seeders go offline, it might not be possible to access files. Last, these systems often run into disagreements with the law: they often disregard copyrights and so are taken down due to legal issues.

This can be resolved by combining the best of both worlds: creating a community-powered digital library based on both centralized and decentralized systems. Files.fm has worked with file storage and sharing applications since 2007. We have used a semi-decentralized file storage system since 2013. Now we plan to implement it on an even larger scale and create a library where everyone can share with their content easily, without interruptions and with all necessary legal protection.

We know what we are doing, but we need your help achieving it. Read more about the library:

Website: https://library.files.fm/

Telegram: https://t.me/filesfm

Bitcointalk ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4949343

Twitter: https://twitter.com/files_fm

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Filesfm/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/filesfm/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6X-6_f1kveo_TfcGuHRZA

[1] The star is called Proxima Centauri and is around 3000 K hot.

[2] They cannot taste sweet but can taste fat — and love it. (The question and the answer might depend on the individual cat, as all things do.)