The code that merges responses can run on the client, on a server, at a CDN edge, or inside a service; and while putting a server between the app and the services adds a network hop, it usually reduces total load time because trading four expensive phone-to-server round trips for one expensive trip plus four cheap server-to-server trips is a large net saving.

Explains the latency tradeoff in choosing where merging runs: a server in front of the services seems costly but usually speeds things up, since intra-datacenter calls are orders of magnitude faster than phone-to-server trips. ✦ AI generated

Author (unnamed) · ByteByteGo Newsletter · 2026-08-13 · original ↗

The code that performs this merging can run in several places. It can run inside the mobile application, on a server in the datacenter, at a CDN edge location, or inside one of the four services. Putting a server between the mobile application and the four services adds a network hop, which sounds like it should cost extra time. However, it usually reduces total load time instead, because a round trip between a phone and a server on a weak mobile connection can take a few hundred milliseconds, while a round trip between two services inside the same datacenter takes a fraction of a millisecond. To put it simply, trading four expensive round trips for one expensive round trip plus four cheap ones is often a large net saving.

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