I've recently heard the argument, that overall fast block propagation is desirable mostly for SMALL miners, miners who use their own template, home miners -- the ones likely to mine with OCEAN.
Large miners have well connected nodes, can peer to each other.
Individual home miners are less connected, so slow block propagation puts them at a larger disadvantage.
I have heard that argument too. But look at the data: two pools -- Mara and CKpool -- cited a higher orphan risk in their explanations for why they stopped ignoring the subsat tx filters.
Mara's post on this: https://x.com/PortlandHODL/status/1958520763083825640
CkPool's post on this: https://x.com/ckpooldev/status/1957235824451559746
Despite whatever peering strategies they are using, they both decided to construct blocks with fewer filtered transactions in them. I would be very surprised if that wasn't because lots of filtered transactions equates to slower block relay.
Ck's post (the 2nd quoted) doesn't say anything about orphan rate or block propagation, his reasons are different, and he describes in detail: too little extra fee income, and the his worry about UTXO bloat.
The post about MARA mentions increased orphan block probability due to the lower propagation. This is quite interesting.
But look at the full picture:
- that was in a time when virtually ALL nodes filtered sub-1-fee transactions
- the extra income from these transactions is minuscule.
These conditions are not the same for the kind of spam transactions discussed!
(BTW, this post is more of an anecdotal evidence, but I credit it credibility.)
