alt Hacker NewsAn airline reservation system has to be perfect (no slack in today's skies), a hotel reservation can be 98% perfect so long as there is some slack and you don't mind putting somebody up in a better room than they paid for from time to time.
A social media system doesn't need to be perfect at all. It was clear to me from the beginning that Bluesky's feeds aren't very fast, not like they are crazy slow, but if it saves money or effort it's no problem if notifications are delayed 30s.
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Especially for a free service!
Think about other ad-supported sites. If you're an engineer working on an ad-supported product, the perfect consistency you strive for in your code is not the product. The product is the sum of all of the content the user sees. And the costs of the tradeoffs you make are paid for by ads.
Am I willing to see 10x more ads for perfect consistency? Definitely not.
Does the fact that an airline booking system must be perfect explain why so many flights are overbooked or cancelled?
> airline reservation system has to be perfect (no slack in today's skies)
The slack just gets moved. Airlines oversell by about 8 percent. All systems need some slack in them. Isn't that kinda Bob's Law or something?
Miscommunication leads to bad outcomes. One missed message out of order could easily lead to a fight, a lawsuit, a flash mob, threats of violence - that then need to be taken seriously, swatting, DOXxing, etc...
Msg 1: I hate ___insert_controversal_person_category_here___
Msg 2: Is the kind of statement that really sets me off
Msg 1 has a very different meaning if you don't see Msg 2.
It's funny because from my experience airline systems are very imperfect (timing wise).
I (unwisely) tried to purchase an Icelandair ticket via the Chase travel portal. I would get a reservation number, go buy seats on Icelandair's website, and a few days later the entire reservation would vanish into the ether. Rinse and repeat 3x.
I can't remember the exact verbiage, but basically tickets can be "reserved" and "booked". One means the ticket is allocated, and one means the ticket is actually paid for. I eventually sat on the phone with an executive support person as they booked the ticket and got it all the way through. It turns out Chase reserves a ticket on an airline but as an SLA of ~3 days to actually pay for the ticket. Icelandair's requires a ticket to be paid with in 24 hours, so it was timing out.