>to think a small subset of paying users will have any affect on the up-time of a major site is just a pipe dream You seem to rely on the assumption that every

>to think a small subset of paying users will have any affect on the up-time of a major site is just a pipe dream You seem to rely on the assumption that every major site's budget is so lush that a small portion of the userbase paying would be unable to solve any of their technical or employee needs. Look at reddit, their recent donation effort has gotten them servers and staff: http://blog.reddit.com/2010/11/help-us-help-you-help-us.html http://blog.reddit.com/2010/11/help-us-help-you-help-us.html You'd be crazy to say that those additional resources will have no affect at all on their uptime.