Likely hypothesis -- three thousand third party application developers who use google web services just got phone calls regarding application speed issues.
Back in the dot-com days of '99, I built and maintained an app that was pretty much identical to what Google Maps released 5 years later (yeah, with tiles and javascript dragging & all that). The downside is that the backend was pulling from this crap GIS system that was always overloaded.
So it would bog down under load. And it was my problem. And it hurt.
So 10 years later, I run a little site built on the Google Maps API. Today it bogged down under load. And it was sunny out so I went out rock climbing because a whole team of smart people were scrambling to fix it for me and it wasn't my problem.
Sometimes "not my problem" can be pretty nice.
I always wanted to pitch the idea of having a YC meetup at a climbing gym.
I seem to find myself in the 'states for about 3-6 months most years, usually in LA. If there were a hacker crag session when I was in town, I'd be there.
A climbing meetup is something I've been planning. I will probably ping the local (nyc) folks to see if they're interested.