• solrize@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    When a user uploads an image or video on Mastodon instance 1, and a user of Mastodon instance 2 is following them, that image or video is copied over to Mastodon instance 2 - because that’s where that user resides.

    The same thing happens with text posts, right? I don’t see an exponential expansion, just linear in the number of nodes. It sounds like the decentralized way to do things. Hmm. Anyway, thanks for the explanation. It saves some storage but doesn’t save bandwidth, it sounds like. Rather, the bandwidth requirement gets concentrated at the shared server.

    • Kissaki@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      Depends on the implementation. OP talked about potential of a CDN serving the shared resources. The instance servers wouldn’t have to proxy the content. Which would allow caching and not duplicating content and transmission through multiple endpoints.

      Yeah, I guess it’s linear rather than exponential in growth. From an instance hoster point of view, it just never ends though, and not very predictable.