1mo ago

How will we deal with all the broken images?

When an instance goes down, all of the images on it go with it. there's going to be a lot from lemm.ee, especially given its size.

31 comments

I used https://postimages.org/ for all the pictures I posted, so should be fine at least for those
- I'm editing some of my posts to use those.
- Testing testing...
  It works when I use the direct link (https://postimg.cc/RN0r6qp8).
  When I use the regular link (https://i.postimg.cc/15GydqG9/Image-20250602-145924.jpg), it says failed to load in Voyager.
  
  I usually go direct link indeed
Real answer: We probably won't, just like every other website.
Some of the big places might have their own copies saved but most instances can't afford to operate like that.
Lemm.ee had and still has strict limitations to image uploads, forcing its users to use external image providers like catbox.moe or postimages. So these images should all still be there.
Granted, I'm not sure how the thumbnails for these externally hosted images work and if they're exclusively stored on lemm.ee
- Catbox, notably, is also on the verge of shutting down.
  
  Patreon dropped them.
  Also, not necessarily on the verge anymore.
- The thumbnails are generated indivdually by each instance.
  I just compressed all my images, thinking lemm.ee would outlive all the image hosts.
Images dont get saved locally on other instances if they host the content? Well that seems like a big flaw in "federation"..
- I assume it's an intentional trade-off by the devs to reduce the storage burden. If each instance is a complete mirror of all federated instances then hosting becomes that much more expensive.
  
  It's also an avenue for attacks.
- Instances have 3 options. Save it locally, proxy it, or do nothing. Saving every federated image is not feasible for small instances. It's not a fault of the protocol that instance operators don't want to pay a thousand dollars a month for storage. Matrix has this problem, and look what happened to them: tiny instances are expensive to run, so don't flourish.
- Not really, it means I can't send every lemmy instance csam.
  
  no, I agree with the above user that it would be better to federate images too, for at least the following reasons:
  redundancy: see the OP
  privacy reasons: images loaded from other instances inform the other instance that one is viewing those images, do you trust all of them?
  censorship reasons: some lemmy instances are blocked in my workplace and I can never look at images from them when browsing at work; others may be blocked in entire countries
  If I'm not mistaken, Mastodon already does federate images to other instances, so it isn't unheard of.
I don't really care about images on here all that much ... I don't mind them being lost if I lose my instance.
Most of the images that are shared are basically 'one off' images for a quick gag or as part of a conversation specific to that moment. And often that conversation or interact is a 'one off' event as well. Which means it was all meaningful when it happened and when it was read the few times it was noticed over two or three years but then it is forgotten.
If there is anything meaningful I come across that I think is important to me or something I want to keep a reference of or keep ... I'll save it or screenshot it and put it away in my own storage or data.
Otherwise, I really don't mind losing all those other images I had created over the years ... they already did their work when people saw them at that moment.
The only reason anyone would want to keep all that data is to archive it for historical reasons .... or to monetize it by collecting a bunch of unique data, images connected to real people.
It looks like archive.org is capturing some of lemm.ee. So, it's possible that most of the images are there and could be referenced.
Not a solution, but this is a great reminder to add descriptions/alt text to your images.
- I agree, they really help.

31 comments