this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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"A" Users would need to send requests to some server anyway, either A or B; that's only diverting the load from B to A, but it isn't alleviating or even sharing it.
Another issue with the current way that ActivityPub works is foul content, that needs to be removed. Remember when some muppet posted CP in LW?
Yes, but this way demand on instances scales with user count and aliows smaller instances to exist. Otherwise an errant toot on a small instance that suddenly gets popular will instantly drag that smaller instance down.
Got it - and that's a fair point. I wonder however if this problem couldn't be solved another way, specially because mirroring is itself a burden for the smaller instances.
consider that caching happens at thousands of levels on the internet. every centralized site has its content replicated many many times in geo local caches, proxies and even local browsers. caching is a very core concept for the internet. others often bash AP because it replicates a lot, but that's kind of like explicit caching: if the whole fediverse network fetched a post from it source, millions of requests would beat small servers down constantly. big servers cache the content they intend to distribute and handle the traffic spike instead of the small instance. small instances on their hand dont need to replicate as much and can rely more on bigger instances, maybe cleaning their cached content often and refetching when necessary. replication is a feature, not a design flaw!
In this case I'd argue that it's both. (A problematic feature? A useful bug? They're the same picture anyway.)
Because of your comment I can see the pros of the mirroring strategy, even if the cons are still there. I wonder if those pros couldn't be "snipped" and implemented into a Nostr-like network, or if the cons can't be ironed out from a Fediverse-like one.