title: S3 for Rails API endpoint - is it necessary?
body: <p>A mobile iOS team wants an endpoint that they can send a username, a user ranking, and either an image related to that user or an array of images if the user has a gif or animation related to them. Then they will ping that endpoint in order to render these images on another page in their mobile app.</p>
  
  <p>I decided to build this in Rails as a prototype. At first I thought I would need S3 in order to store the images, but now I'm not so sure. Can't I use the built-in database within my Rails app, since my Rails app won't be rendering any of the images? What are the advantages of using S3 in this case? Is S3 necessary?</p>