In modern distributed systems, scalability is not a nice-to-have. Whether serving a global user base or responding to a viral spike, systems that fail to scale often fail outright.
At the scale of Uber Eats, image handling is an operational necessity. The platform manages hundreds of millions of product images, with millions of updates flowing through the system every hour.
A database needs to be sure about who the leader is at any given time, that the leader is sufficiently up to date, and that a new leader can be chosen quickly and safely when necessary.