Another way that a global cdn helps is that your HTTPS negotiation takes place closer by.
There are (in http 1.1 at least) many back and forth steps to negotiating the HTTPS connection, the encryption key, etc. A global cdn into a cloud service (CloudFront is the example I know best) lets the user do those back and forths with a server very close to them, then handle the long haul to where the request is handled in one round trip.
There are (in http 1.1 at least) many back and forth steps to negotiating the HTTPS connection, the encryption key, etc. A global cdn into a cloud service (CloudFront is the example I know best) lets the user do those back and forths with a server very close to them, then handle the long haul to where the request is handled in one round trip.
Eg: putting CloudFront in front of your API calls can make them faster! Great video by slack on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oVaTiRl9-v0