Infrastructure as Competitive Advantage
ma.tt
ma.tt
It is true that people will put up with horrendous site performance if they really need what the site provides. And MySpace and Twitter are good examples. However, I think that only a certain class of sites can rely on this user behaviour: ones that involve a social contract.
If I can't retrieve a message on MySpace for a few hours because the site is down, or if I can't get to Twitter all day, I don't keep persisting because I need that message or those @reply tweets. I do it because I don't want to appear rude and I don't want to be out of the loop. The people I know on MySpace and Twitter are real people, not just internet people. Thus, if I don't reply, it hurts my social relationships.