this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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Technology
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It doesn't matter if virality is the goal, unless you're suggesting it be actively prevented, virality is just a natural phenomenon of the internet. The term viral generally implies uncontrolled exponential spread. To this day, stuff goes viral without people intending it to.
And if you architect the system to scale a p2p network proportional to virality (ex. as people share it, they also self-host) you run into a ton of security and abuse challenges. We're also stretching the definition of "self-hosting" at this point.
I actually kind of love the idea of a per diem Unknown User Limit. Like the first 5000 unregistered users can view the site, but after that they get dropped at ingress. Also, limit user signups per day (this ain't about growing user base, it's about preventing virality)!
Sure, you could still need an ingress server that can handle a high load to avoid the accidental ddos of word-of-mouth gets out about it, but that's a million times lower of a requirement than a server that can handle serving a web page or app to the same number of users.
Yeah, I actually kinda like the idea of a whole internet where avoiding virality is somehow built into the system. But I think such a system would naturally evolve into a p2p solution. You couldn't stop people from taking and rehosting content on their own servers.
The post I was replying to claimed virality and self hosting are at odds with one another because it causes skyrocketing expense. My point was that maybe someone selfhosting a server in the fediverse is not as interested in virality. And I doubt even the most viral posts in the fediverse would break the bank of a selfhoster
And my point was directly in response to your point.