CDNs.
A local branch of the warehouse, so your delivery comes from across town, not across the world.
- …delivery estimate?1
With one origin server, a faraway visitor waits for every byte to cross the planet.
- 2
Distance is time — and it adds up on every single byte.
- 3
Copies sit in hundreds of cities, each with an expiry date — the origin stays the single source of truth.
- Now we’re talking.4
You fetch from the closest one — a short hop, not a world tour.
- 5
The edge soaks up the crowd, so the origin faces a trickle instead of a flood.
- Extra pineapple? That one’s bespoke.6
Shared files come from the edge; truly personal or live data still comes from the origin.
Semicolony semicolony.dev/eli5/cdn/comic