I see! Thanks.

So it's often "presented" as "a local database which is replicated by streaming", but perhaps it would be more natural to view it as a kind of "centralized database, but with local caches that are kept near your server code, and sync'd"

I understand it's the same, but it makes the intent clearer: the intent is more to have a local cache to read/update (which is then sync'd), or at least it seems clearer to me presented that way :)