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The central idea here is that you need to hire large numbers of engineers and have an immense compute footprint to run a site like Parler. This simply isn't tru

The central idea here is that you need to hire large numbers of engineers and have an immense compute footprint to run a site like Parler. This simply isn't true anymore.

wokwokwok 6y ago
Why would the required server footprint have changed since previously? I buy it’s easier/cheaper to manage infrastructure, but scale requires infrastructure and I don’t understand why that would have changed.
- username90 6y ago
  Most forums can run on a single server, scale is cheap when you just exchange text messages.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    BuzzFeed reported yesterday that Parler's AWS bill was over $300k per month: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...
    - username90 6y ago
      Yeah, then this doesn't apply to them, they are funded by something. Just that you don't have to be to have a few million active users.
  - wokwokwok 6y ago
    That’s not what I asked. I asked why the required number of server is smaller than previously, which is what the OP said.
    - username90 6y ago
      Computers are faster than 20 years ago, and amateurs stated and ran big forums 20 years ago.
      - wokwokwok 6y ago
        Haha, you made my day with that reply. Sure, you’re right. Compared to the scale you had to worry about 20 years ago, I guess you need less severs to get the same thing now.
        username90 6y ago
        People had millions concurrent users on a server 8 years ago. Having a couple of million users total should be no problems at all unless you use the very heavy popular server frameworks. https://vimeo.com/44312354 https://vimeo.com/44312354
  - acdha 6y ago
    That’s not true at a large scale, and they have lots of media files in addition to text. One problem to especially consider is how timelines work: a forum generates one view for a much smaller number of users but any service with a follower model has to efficiently distribute updates. This isn’t incredibly hard, of course, but they’re not just spinning up an IRC server here.
rbanffy 6y ago
I see Parler is tiny when compared to Twitter, but i have no idea how large or demanding it is. How does it monetize its traffic?

The central idea here is that you need to hire large numbers of engineers and have an immense compute footprint to run a site like Parler. This simply isn't true anymore.

wokwokwok 6y ago

Why would the required server footprint have changed since previously? I buy it’s easier/cheaper to manage infrastructure, but scale requires infrastructure and I don’t understand why that would have changed.

username90 6y ago
Most forums can run on a single server, scale is cheap when you just exchange text messages.
- wtallis 6y ago
  BuzzFeed reported yesterday that Parler's AWS bill was over $300k per month: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...
  - username90 6y ago
    Yeah, then this doesn't apply to them, they are funded by something. Just that you don't have to be to have a few million active users.
- wokwokwok 6y ago
  That’s not what I asked. I asked why the required number of server is smaller than previously, which is what the OP said.
  - username90 6y ago
    Computers are faster than 20 years ago, and amateurs stated and ran big forums 20 years ago.
    - wokwokwok 6y ago
      Haha, you made my day with that reply. Sure, you’re right. Compared to the scale you had to worry about 20 years ago, I guess you need less severs to get the same thing now.
      - username90 6y ago
        People had millions concurrent users on a server 8 years ago. Having a couple of million users total should be no problems at all unless you use the very heavy popular server frameworks. https://vimeo.com/44312354 https://vimeo.com/44312354
- acdha 6y ago
  That’s not true at a large scale, and they have lots of media files in addition to text. One problem to especially consider is how timelines work: a forum generates one view for a much smaller number of users but any service with a follower model has to efficiently distribute updates. This isn’t incredibly hard, of course, but they’re not just spinning up an IRC server here.

rbanffy 6y ago

I see Parler is tiny when compared to Twitter, but i have no idea how large or demanding it is. How does it monetize its traffic?