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How does paying for something ensure no downtime? I'm pretty sure most services never want to be down, paid or not. I'm missing the connection here; does it s

How does paying for something ensure no downtime? I'm pretty sure most services never want to be down, paid or not. I'm missing the connection here; does it somehow prevent people from making errors if you pay?

scott_s 16y ago
It doesn't, which is a point the author makes.
- bitskits 16y ago
  I was asking the question in general, mostly because I've seen a rash of articles saying "Let me pay to make twitter stable", etc. I should have formed my comment better, as it does appear to question this article rather than the idea.
  - wmf 16y ago
    I think it's based on the intuition that "you get what you pay for"; if a company has more revenue they should be able to spend more money on availability. Unfortunately, I don't think money is the bottleneck here.
David 16y ago
From the article: "I’ve seen many similar pleas recently whenever any popular, free web service has problems: “Please, let us pay you so there won’t be any problems!” But it’s an impossible dream. If a web service is popular enough that you hear about it when it has downtime or major issues, it’s probably a large, very complex system. 100% uptime is effectively impossible."
- aasarava 16y ago
  True, but in fairness to bitskits, the author goes on to talk about paying to use FastMail as an alternative to Gmail. Yet, he doesn't provide any comparative uptime data to show that FastMail is objectively better. As for being able to own your data and store local backups, you can do that with Gmail POP, or with Gmail IMAP and an email client that'll store messages locally. (The author's argument that Gmail IMAP is buggy, is one anecdote; I can provide my own anecdote to the contrary. Again, we'd need some data to prove that FastMail is better.)
  - cschmidt 16y ago
    I've used fastmail for years - it is a great service. Their status page will show you the downtime they have. http://status.fastmail.fm/ http://status.fastmail.fm/
  - scott_s 16y ago
    Yet, he doesn't provide any comparative uptime data to show that FastMail is objectively better. This is true, but his solution is not one that must use FastMail. His address is his own, and he backs up his own email. So if FastMail lost everything of his, he would be able to switch over to something else. That he owns his own email address is the important factor, not that he happens to use FastMail. For the record, I use Gmail for all of my personal email, and I don't bother keeping backups.
deleted 16y ago
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scott_s 16y ago

It doesn't, which is a point the author makes.

bitskits 16y ago
I was asking the question in general, mostly because I've seen a rash of articles saying "Let me pay to make twitter stable", etc. I should have formed my comment better, as it does appear to question this article rather than the idea.
- wmf 16y ago
  I think it's based on the intuition that "you get what you pay for"; if a company has more revenue they should be able to spend more money on availability. Unfortunately, I don't think money is the bottleneck here.

David 16y ago

From the article: "I’ve seen many similar pleas recently whenever any popular, free web service has problems: “Please, let us pay you so there won’t be any problems!” But it’s an impossible dream. If a web service is popular enough that you hear about it when it has downtime or major issues, it’s probably a large, very complex system. 100% uptime is effectively impossible."

aasarava 16y ago
True, but in fairness to bitskits, the author goes on to talk about paying to use FastMail as an alternative to Gmail. Yet, he doesn't provide any comparative uptime data to show that FastMail is objectively better. As for being able to own your data and store local backups, you can do that with Gmail POP, or with Gmail IMAP and an email client that'll store messages locally. (The author's argument that Gmail IMAP is buggy, is one anecdote; I can provide my own anecdote to the contrary. Again, we'd need some data to prove that FastMail is better.)
- cschmidt 16y ago
  I've used fastmail for years - it is a great service. Their status page will show you the downtime they have. http://status.fastmail.fm/ http://status.fastmail.fm/
- scott_s 16y ago
  Yet, he doesn't provide any comparative uptime data to show that FastMail is objectively better. This is true, but his solution is not one that must use FastMail. His address is his own, and he backs up his own email. So if FastMail lost everything of his, he would be able to switch over to something else. That he owns his own email address is the important factor, not that he happens to use FastMail. For the record, I use Gmail for all of my personal email, and I don't bother keeping backups.

deleted 16y ago

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