quixoticgeek, 
I can't help but thinking this is more a case of fix your own shit. Rather than bitching about mastodon.
Pretty much any website beyond some self hosted personal blog should have no issues with the number of requests being talked about here...
Maybe if someone like @cstross was to be posting the link. That might be legit breaking. But for most mortals. It shouldn't be.
Fix your shit.