I see no benefit in download times. My internet is as slow as forget.
This is simply because you have no basis for comparison or you are deliberately being obtuse.
Prior to v18, download speeds were limited to the equivalent of a 28.8 modem. That is not an exaggeration. It could literally take 10 hours to download even the barest minimum of necessary files to join a server.
It is now possible to download files literally 1,000 times faster than that. Even if you
are on a 28.8 modem, the duplicate file matching means that you only have to download half as much stuff.