In reply to Kraft.

Thanks for the detailed technical explanation Kraft. It's succinct and clear and to the point.

Yet it seems to me this is another scores for Jetpack as serviceware (plugin using a service when it is not necessary to send data offsite). There's absolutely no reason that the dynamic image resizing couldn't be handled on site (with perhaps a subset of Photon's features). Dynamic image resizing is another good example of the borg approach taken by Jetpack/Automattic.

Really, really why should it be necessary to use third party servers to get reasonably attractive galleries. Why cripple core comments (no real improvements in five years)? Why cripple core image handling?