This YouTube video - Stargirl Lee | Create retro web graphics - popped into my feed, and one of the things I learned was Hotlinking. This impacts the way I will be using 88x31 buttons and badges

I now know that embedding a media file on a webpage by linking to its source URL is highly discouraged. This goes against the philosophy of digital ownership and does not follow indieweb etiquette. Hotlinking has the following violations:

• Bandwidth Theft (biggest issue)
  • When you hotlink an image from a personal blog or a small independent creator, every visitor to your site forces their server to deliver the file. For individuals paying for limited virtual private servers (VPS) or shared hosting, this can exhaust their bandwidth and result in unexpected hosting bills
• Link Rot and Loss of Control
  • If you rely on hotlinked images from other platforms (such as Instagram or old forums), you do not control the content. When the host site changes its URLs, goes under, or blocks hotlinking, the images on your site turn into broken layout boxes
• Silo Traps
  • Using external URLs tied to corporate social networks (silos) defeats the core point of the IndieWeb, which is to pull your identity and content away from centralized entities

With this in mind, I have revised my buttons and explicitly outlined the etiquette I am following on the buttons page

Note

Hotlinking YouTube videos is fine, as embedding a YouTube video does not steal the creator’s bandwidth