title: Why not let consumers pull messages from followers?
body: <p>It seems Kafka only allows consumers to pull messages from the <code>leader</code> broker (the broker on which the leader partition running). The <code>followers</code> only sync with the <code>leader</code>, and consumers CANNOT read messages from the <code>followers</code>.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Why NOT let consumers also pull messages from <code>followers</code>?</strong></p>
  
  <p>I think if the consumer can read messages from <code>followers</code>, we can have load balancing for reading from all broker servers, and the performance of the whole system should be better. Say, the <code>leader</code> is too busy, and the bandwidth of the <code>leader</code> becomes a bottleneck. If we can pull messages from the <code>followers</code>, the performance should be better.</p>