When the Tweets Go Out: Downtime and User Expectations

Last weekend's Twitter downtime has prompted the expected bout of hand-wringing... (I didn't even notice, but evidently many, many others sure did) User's expectations of performance from a free service are not unforeseen, nor should these expectations be discounted. However, it must be pointed out that AOL was a fee-based service (unless you kept cancelling and reinstalling via those ubiquitous free-month CD-ROMS; I used them as coasters): the more members AOL got, the more money it was bringing in, so their war chest would, in theory, grow with their user base. Twitter, on the other hand, is still living at home with its folks, and has not yet put a revenue plan into action.
Still, Twitter's relatively small user base is made up by those who live a full digital life: the movers and shakers of the tech industry. Looking at my own Twitter connection group, I only see my friends and colleagues who work in the industry at a high level: the ones who make stuff and do stuff: the trendsetters and opinion-makers, if not world- and industry-wide, then at least within their immediate communities. These are the people a company has to make happy, and, fair or not, uptime is crucial to keeping 'em sweet.