IPFS for operations of desktop and server nodes has a concept of pinning. This roughly means “don’t delete from cache” but what it means exactly is extremely variable. I believe the term “pinning” to be harmful.
Hosting at scale, most IPFS operators turned off garbage collection / cache eviction that is influenced by pinning. Other strategies — like keeping a private database of CIDs matched to user accounts — is used instead.
Pinning also says nothing about persisting or backing up files.
From a user perspective, what language should be used on more client side applications?
eg a check mark that says “help share this content on the network” which is different from “keep a copy of this content for your use offline” which is different from “please store this in the network for access by anyone even when I’m offline”
Web3Storage, for example, persists uploaded files to the Filecoin network, and also makes the content available for retrieval over IPFS and IPFS Gateways (that is, over HTTP).