Bandwidth and storage become expensive when you use enough of them, and Lemmy instances are typically operated for free by individual volunteers who are stumping up all the running costs from their own pockets.
Because of this, many instances restrict what can be uploaded (type and size) and prefer people host videos and gifs on other services which are better set up to deal with it.
I’m not a server operator so there may be other factors I’m not mentioning here, but that’s at least part of it.
Im curious if it is the difficulties with uploading images to the instance server via 3rd party apps. CORS policy has made it difficult to upload to some instances.
Genuine question. Why are gifs on Lemmy often links to a file rather than an embedded gif?
Bandwidth and storage become expensive when you use enough of them, and Lemmy instances are typically operated for free by individual volunteers who are stumping up all the running costs from their own pockets.
Because of this, many instances restrict what can be uploaded (type and size) and prefer people host videos and gifs on other services which are better set up to deal with it.
I’m not a server operator so there may be other factors I’m not mentioning here, but that’s at least part of it.
Im curious if it is the difficulties with uploading images to the instance server via 3rd party apps. CORS policy has made it difficult to upload to some instances.