Post #3138412
2026-03-04 20:24 UTC
@ddr@pony.social I think I remember a couple things like this quite a long time ago, so I think you are remembering correctly. Relatively insular free community hosting, basically, with tight quotas for people who are not part of the community to prevent widespread hotlinking.
You could do this with an iframe nowadays too, but sizing it correctly is still basically unsolved, I think? And it would probably use more resources, though not by much.
But then again, I haven't heard of or thought about hotlinking as an issue for a long time now. I kind of wonder what changed. Maybe everyone just uses CDNs? Or sites copy files a whole lot more?
Replies (1)
-
@ddr@pony.social 2026-03-06 06:19
@groxx@hachyderm.io. I think disk storage became like 100x cheaper or something, so the cost of hosting them yourselves basically went away. It was always a usability/reliability mess anyway. To some extent, it's also been a while since I've been on a forum at all, as well... 🤔