[Osmf-talk] Data Was: Re: Tiles

[Paul Norman]

On 2023-06-04 7:31 p.m., Steve Coast wrote:

> When we’re told that other sites are a small fraction this is indeed 
> true but sidesteps a well known problem in long tail statistics - what 
> happens when you add up all the other sites? If you add them all up 
> there are ~10k/requests a second across the data given.

This is not what you're told. "The vast majority of use from non-OSM 
sources is very small websites" is what I said earlier in this thread. 
When I did my SOTM 2021 presentation on the usage of the Standard layer, 
about 50% of the general website traffic was from sites with under 1 
tile per second average. https://i.imgur.com/ACYjBPP.png is a treemap. 
Although the details have changed since then, the big categories should 
be similar.

> So it’s fair to say OSM is giving away ~80-90% of our tiles to non-OSM 
> users. I wonder if our hosts actually know this? 

The fact that tiles are widely used has helped with some of the in-kind 
donations for the Standard tile layer. These donations could not be used 
for other purposes.


> Which brings us neatly to the theory that it’s all fine because 
> someone is doing this for free. It strikes me this is like saying the 
> roads are free because the government is paying for them. But more 
> precisely, OSM(F) has an opportunity cost where donations (80-90% in 
> this case could) be better managed or spent. It has a cost in terms of 
> relationship and management. It’s not free at all.

Shutting down the Standard tile layer would save about 3% of the OSMF 
budget. Your numbers have no relation to what the actual costs are, 
either financial or time.