There's a bit of daylight between "feasible" and "guaranteed". It turns out it really isn't that much daylight, and it's really easy to overestimate the size o

There's a bit of daylight between "feasible" and "guaranteed". It turns out it really isn't that much daylight, and it's really easy to overestimate the size of that window. As you scale up, that window gets smaller and smaller, too, which makes it even more exciting. Nevertheless, it is indeed where real systems are built. I also disagree that realizing that nothing can be guaranteed is not important to building systems. The more you scale up, the more important it is. It's hugely important. It's one of the major things that separates people who can build real network systems at scale and those who can't. Far from the only such thing, but certainly one of the important ones.