I looked into relays a bit, but I don’t think they’re what I want for my tiny little instance. Relays are a firehose; they ingest everything from every instance connected to the same relay, which can quickly take up storage on my low-end setup. My little Python script is more precise. It only targets individual communities that my users are actually interested in.
That’s all assuming I’m actually understanding how relays work. If I’m missing something, please let me know, and I can change gears without a hitch


I know it’s a feature – that’s what I meant by “most of it is a result of completely intentional behavior”. However, I then went on to say that it is still detrimental to my users’ browsing experience if they want to “daily drive” r1b.it. Like I said in another comment, I’m not replicating the entire fediverse – that’s why I didn’t opt for a relay. I’m only replicating what my users want to see
Edit: I also want to make it clear that this optimization is actually super beneficial for most instance. However, for us little guys that are just getting off the ground with only a handful of users, it can be hard to deal with