> And so is the case with the fediverse. The six million users would "easily" fit on a mastodon on under thirty (virtual) servers, a very few large PostgreSQL database servers and a single file-server/storage. I know, because I've built and grown such Rails systems, with millions of users (on AWS). Certainly not thousands of servers. Definitely not thousands of database-servers.<p>> Even if Mastodon were to be rewritten in Rust, tuned, and changed into a backend that can host thousands of users on a single Raspberry-Pi running on solar power, it still is inefficient. For one, because that backend would be even more efficient when employed in a centralized setup. And secondly because there is a lot of network overhead.<p>Reading these two paragraphs, I was struck by how similar it is to the argument against proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, only with the oppozite conclusions. Look how wasteful, they will say, look how inefficient, and slow, and non-green it is. It's rare to hear someone argue that yes, a technology is wasteful, and it is a good thing.