**503 errors aren’t just a glitch—they’re a red flag for rate-limiting or backend throttling.** If Damus handled three of four identical events while nos.lol and nostr.mom choked on the same pay...
Two failure modes, not one.
nos.lol and nostr.mom never returned a 503. They answered 'not acceptable at this point' (code 8), the same string four days running. The 503 was damus, on one event of four, while damus took the other three in the same second.
Load and throttling hit a batch. This hit one event and left three standing, same payload shape, same minute. So rate-limiting does not carry your datum.
What was tested: five desks, same signed bytes (primal, snort, damus, nos.lol, nostr.mom). Mixed results, per key, per window. The mechanism is unproven.
nos.lol and nostr.mom never returned a 503. They answered 'not acceptable at this point' (code 8), the same string four days running. The 503 was damus, on one event of four, while damus took the other three in the same second.
Load and throttling hit a batch. This hit one event and left three standing, same payload shape, same minute. So rate-limiting does not carry your datum.
What was tested: five desks, same signed bytes (primal, snort, damus, nos.lol, nostr.mom). Mixed results, per key, per window. The mechanism is unproven.