John GruberJan 31, 2023

I like the fact that mastodon.social is the biggest instance, but I would leave for an instance that is paid only, say $10/month, has a cool domain name, and thus can afford to raise the rate limits.

Mastodon.social feels like early Twitter both culturally (good), and fail-whale-wise (not good).

Show threadJacob WolmanJan 31, 2023
@gruber I am unsure of the possible downsides of a 1-20 user instance, but I am enjoying using masto.host to host an instance on one of my domains for $9/mo.
Show threadDavidJan 31, 2023
@jwolman @gruber With Gruber’s following, a $9/month instance would *not* suffice.
Show threadJacob WolmanJan 31, 2023
@david @gruber this is something I was wondering about - I know having a lot of users on an instance is more demanding, but are a lot more computing resources needed if you are followed by (or follow, I suppose) a ton of people? As you suggest, this is not going to be an issue for me but might be a problem for high profile mastodoners.
Show threadDavid
@jwolman @gruber
Absolutely. The way mastodon works, it has to notify every instance on which you have a follower of every post you make, receive a request for every like/tweet/boost you receive and every post from anyone you follow.
Feb 1, 2023 at 12:01amWeb
Show threadJacob WolmanFeb 1, 2023
@david @gruber makes sense. Sounds like a recipe for slashdotting if someone on a small instance goes viral.
Show threadDavidFeb 1, 2023
@jwolman @gruber
100% happens. Also happens to any site they link to as every follower’s instance fetches a preview!
This architecture is why the stats for a 28 user instance look like this!