First of all thanks for the encouraging words!<p>&gt; If a user is to run a &quot;node&quot; on their PC, how will the network react if a friend&#x2F;follower is offline when data is requested from them.<p>There are some things currently in development such as IPFS clusters that can tackle this issue. There&#x27;s also the IPFS filecoin token (not yet live) which would provide an incentive for people to keep the hash &quot;alive&quot;. This is similar to how Ethereum&#x27;s Swarm will work.<p>In the meantime the gateways mentioned in a comment bellow would act as a sort of &quot;seed&quot; even if the OP goes offline.<p>&gt; will a node be runnable on a home server system, allowing for higher-availability and easier backups of personal data?<p>I don&#x27;t see why not. Remains to be tested though :)