No We Don't Need 100% Uptime

One thing that COVID has taught us is things we had considered serious before, are not that really serious. A flight does not need to be on time, as long as it lands safely. And if a web service is down for an hour (or a day) it is not the end of the world.

There is this notions of schedule, being on-time and several "nines' of availability. Especially in the Western civilization. Things are different in Latin America, for example.

The other day waiting in Nazca (Peru) for a night bus to Arequipa, I witnessed a conversation between a (Western) tourist and the local clerk in the ticket office on the bus station. She wanted to know "precisely" when the bus will arrive. The clerk was explaining politely that the bus left Lima at 3pm and keeps going. And that it was 450 kilometers stage, so considering the unknown road conditions, it could be here withing 1-3 hours. The tourist could not believe why the bus line could not be more precise.

And the bus was simply doing it's best effort to get to Nazca safely and without stress.

Demanding ultra-high availability and precise schedules costs a lot. A lot of infrastructure investments, an a lot of stress. While we could simply do with a best-effort approach most of the time.

The recent Garmin downtime seems to be a proof we are (generally) getting more relaxed. Garmin was down for almost a week (I am a frequent user, but have not counted the days precisely), and couple of Internet rants aside (and media trying to make a big story of it), most ordinary people simply ignored it. I did. I think the reaction would be different in pre-COVID times. Or maybe I'm wrong. But it really seems people are more forgiving now, realizing there are so many things you can simply do without.