I’m a unique case because my first foray into Linux was using the CLI via SSH on a server, and I thought the CLI was insanely cool and was immediately hooked. So I don’t really have any good advice other than to just force yourself to use it I guess?

Ironically, I have a more difficult time using desktop Linux just because it’s not a headless environment like I’m used to. I still use it ofc.

That’s not how it works. Instances don’t cache images from other instances. If you hover your mouse over an image you can clearly see the site it’s hosted on is in fact not originating from the instance you’re browsing on. It works like Pleroma, Akkoma, Rebased, and other Pleroma forks.

IANAL, but I believe you can’t be held liable for hosting links to other images on a site, regardless if they’re embedded through the website’s UI. They’re not stored there, afterall. The client is rendering them.

All that gets cached, I believe, is the text and users from remote instances. And by cached, I mean stored in the postgres DB.