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Comment by joshuaheard | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an expert in internet architecture, but shouldn't a site this important be running on redundant servers? The irony of a tech site going down due to technical issue is making me grin, however. Glad to see it back :)

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"Important"?

Really?

Obviously Im a fan of the site, etc, etc, but "important"? On what level?

Im not even sure I'd call Facebook or Twitter important. Banking, yes. Weather warnings, yes. Things like that, sure. But, Im also pretty sure "important" is slightly over egging it for dear HN.

(No offence PG xxxx)

I definitely find it important, from a career perspective.

Whaaa? I guess I can see that, in the sense that chatting and/or blowing off steam may have psychological benefits, but we're both just killing time here. Don't kid yourself.

I've learned a lot on HN, and I think learning is important, ergo I think HN is important.

Which is why I have a backup of it in case this happens again.

Important, absolutely – important as in critical service requiring 100% uptime? Not so much.

>>Im not even sure I'd call Facebook or Twitter important.

Imagine Twitter or Facebook being down during Egyptian revolutions.

They'd have just gone to Facebook or Twitter instead. If you see what I mean.

Up-time for those type of sites is probably important for retention. But not for significant world events. But then again, Twitter kinda proved that even for retention that's not very important given how flaky that used to be.

IRC was the go-to before social networking. It's where I got up to the minute updates as the events of 9/11 unfolded, despite being 800+ miles away. That's also when I realized TV news is obsolete.

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