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Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

matthewtejo.substack.com

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Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#41

Post by taolegal »

philistine wrote: post #33
ulkesh wrote: post #27

All this does is point out that smart people worked at Twitter who may now no longer work there, whether on their own accord, or due to Elon’s bulldogging tactics. Elon thinks he knows what he’s doing, but what he is going to be left with are people who are willing to work hard by his standards, but not necessarily smart. The simple truth is Elon knows nothing about the actual work involved in tech. He knows words or…

And Twitter's problem are nowhere near technological. The site needed to make more money, not reengineer the whole thing while advertisers are fleeing because Trump is back on on a whim!

So should the platform be guided by advertisers? Especially one that’s apparently the de facto public square?

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#42

Post by headsoup »

emodendroket wrote: post #23

I think people's expectations became so exaggerated it was inevitable they wouldn't be lived up to. I'm sure Twitter will experience degradation from the drastic cost-cutting, but it was never going to happen overnight and I'm not sure why news outlets were saying that (except that their sources were employees with slightly inflated senses of their own importance, which we're all sometimes guilty of). And people beca…

Because politics and ideologues are so prevalent and everyone's attaching 'the other' (both sides) for the own.

And of course people in 'important' roles who've been laid off are going to say the company is doomed, these are the probably the worst source to go off. They're not going to say "oh yeah I didn't do much at all really, just bossed people around and spent my budget every year."

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#43

Post by robswc »

It was if I was in two realities the other day. I did experience a few bugs but twitter never went "down" for me, despite everyone claiming that 1) it would and 2) it already did.

All 10 of the "top trends" for me were about how twitter was dead/dying and armchair experts on reddit said it was only a matter of hours at this point.

Maybe it was close (in reference to external factors not implied in your very insightful post!) but its amazing how confident people are with opinions on events they have 0 insight into. Everyone knows how to solve the war in Ukraine or world hunger but how rare is the "consensus" (in terms of up-votes or popularity) right... just something that got me thinking. Thanks again for this article. I always love seeing details of tech ops!

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#46

Post by etchalon »

taolegal wrote: post #41
philistine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Twitter's problem are nowhere near technological. The site needed to make more money, not reengineer the whole thing while advertisers are fleeing because Trump is back on on a whim!

So should the platform be guided by advertisers? Especially one that’s apparently the de facto public square?

I don't think "should" is really a function here.

"Must" might be.

No one has figured out a way to monetize a social network without advertising, at least not at the scale Twitter has to operate.

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#47

Post by mtejo »

danielodievich wrote: post #3

Excellent article. However!, software, like everything, is subject to laws of physics. Entropy always wins in the end. No matter how good the original engineering and planning, without maintenance it will all fall apart soon enough.

Thanks I agree, I think small issues can build up over time, itll be interesting to see what happens. Wish I could see the future post mortem docs from the outages

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#48

Post by acdha »

colesantiago wrote: post #15
danielodievich wrote: post #3

Excellent article. However!, software, like everything, is subject to laws of physics. Entropy always wins in the end. No matter how good the original engineering and planning, without maintenance it will all fall apart soon enough.

> Entropy always wins in the end. No matter how good the original engineering and planning, without maintenance it will all fall apart soon enough. This seems to be more true of Mastodon than Twitter. I can't imagine any self hosted Mastodon instance staying up longer than twitter.

First, Mastodon isn’t the only option - it’s not like both couldn’t fail just as both AIM and MySpace did.

Second, Mastodon runs on open protocols. That has good and bad points - for example, it won’t grow as quickly as a project with huge corporate backing - but it does mean that there’s a more direct link between the community and its longevity. Twitter isn’t just flailing because Musk is doing management by bong rip but also because he’s desperately trying to get out of a financial hole. Open source projects have different kinds of financial challenges but they’re never on the hook trying to fill a hole measured in billions of dollars, either. Given the number of communities older than Twitter I’d say it’s far from proven that Twitter will outlast anything.

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#49

Post by emodendroket »

headsoup wrote: post #42
emodendroket wrote: post #23

I think people's expectations became so exaggerated it was inevitable they wouldn't be lived up to. I'm sure Twitter will experience degradation from the drastic cost-cutting, but it was never going to happen overnight and I'm not sure why news outlets were saying that (except that their sources were employees with slightly inflated senses of their own importance, which we're all sometimes guilty of). And people beca…

Because politics and ideologues are so prevalent and everyone's attaching 'the other' (both sides) for the own. And of course people in 'important' roles who've been laid off are going to say the company is doomed, these are the probably the worst source to go off. They're not going to say "oh yeah I didn't do much at all really, just bossed people around and spent my budget every year."

I don't even doubt that they did a lot of work, but as this article suggests, that's part of the reason why we _wouldn't_ expect the site to just go down in a couple days. If all the servers needed constant manual massaging that would speak more poorly to their work than the other way around.

Re: Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE

#50

Post by encryptluks2 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #39
wankle wrote: post #30

I can't help but feel it might not be legal to post all those details.

What law do you think is being broken?

Breach of contract possibly. Usually companies don't want you revealing their internal infrastructure publicly unless you get permission. Who knows though.
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