Technology Expectations Too High and So Goes the Rhetoric

Reporting mediums are still feeding on the carcass of the NetFlix outage which occurred earlier this month. NetFlix has reported that it has traced the cause of the outage to a hardware glitch which prevented it from shipping movies to its customers. Most people report not even noticing a delay and received their movies as scheduled. I received my new red envelopes about a day longer than the usual turn around time. To be honest, I wouldn't have even noticed the delay if it weren't for all the media reports analogous to the sky falling.

Today I read an article written by CNET's Greg Sandoval raising the question "Is it time for NetFlix to invest in a system upgrade?". My response to that article is "Upgrade what?". Since NetFlix has released no details about the hardware failure, I find it ridiculous that this question is even being asked. Sandoval's article is just one more example of how gas is poured on the flames in the tech world.

We all depend on things that from time to time suffer from a part failure or an interruption in service. Cars, phones, cable, and electric service are but a few. The response to these breakdowns and outages seem to be very miniscule in comparison to what a technology based, or so called Web 2.0 company, suffers. Think about it... What was your response the last time you lost electricity to your home. Was there a huge out cry for system upgrades and portents of disaster for the industry? Chances are you just waited for the lights to pop back on, and then went back to business as usual. Why aren't technology and web based companies afforded this same behavior?

Sensational reports and rhetorical questions have been posed about Amazon, Twitter, and Google just to name a few. Rafe Needleman, also at CNET, even posted an article citing the 10 Worst Web Glitches of 2008 (so far). It's interesting to see these things noted, but the level to which the attention rises is way out of proportion. After all, there is a great chance of disaster when electricity ceases to flow. The same cannot be said if someone receives their DVDs a bit late in the mail.