So Unite.Cash utilizes IPFS to host, view, and play content posted there using the BCH op_return. Memo can look at the code to see if it would be interested for media storage/use.
Memo will likely be adding IPFS support. Not sure when though.
Good question. BCH has better availability (+timestamps), but for a small fee. Tips create interesting opportunities. IPFS is cheaper, though less performant and censorship resistant.
Not that I know of. The main difference is IPFS like torrents requires altruistic seeders. Content can disappear if no one is seeding it, or have slow seeders. BCH will always be fast.
Users could even pay BCH so their content is well hosted (seeded) on IPFS. Since Memo is text it's worth the fee to put it on-chain and have it hosted indefinitely.
OP_RETURN outputs get pruned from the UTXO dataset. They are still required to validate the entire blockchain and are therefore recorded with the same level of guarantees as all txns.
Images and video are too expensive to put on chain, so it's worth the performance/censorship resistance hit to use IPFS. Hopefully price to put data on-chain will go down over time.
Storing images and video on-chain is expensive. To support media in a decentralized way it must be stored elsewhere. IPFS would be added to the current options (Imgur, Youtube, etc).
Yes, that was the original plan. If you look at the source of the protocol page there's an action commented out for setting a base URL, basically a content hosting provider.
what's the difference between running a central server and running an IPFS node? You need a server anyhow. With IPFS people can help hosting their own files.
One benefit is that it doesn't require DNS or even a public server. You can run a local Memo client that uses IPFS. Another nice thing is it has built in easily parsable hashes.
Uploading directly integrates the media effort and the posting effort => will prompt more participation (less hesitation about going offsite to get URLs.