I disagree.

Twitter’s main selling point isn’t that it updates my page whether I’m looking or not. If I’m not looking, and they update my page, they are just wasting computer power. If they have too much computer power, and never run out, that isn’t a problem, but if they are unreliable during the day, they should fix it.

I agree that “A connection from a browser every 20 seconds is not particularly costly”. However, the SEARCH that they have to do IS costly, and that’s what is causing the fail whale.

Also, “throwing more hardware at it” costs money and takes time. My solution is quicker, and costs almost nothing.

And besides, things have moved on in web service technology in the past decade. A connection from a browser every 20 seconds is not particularly costly. Certainly it’s something Twitter copes with most of the time. And it’s a scalable problem anyway – it can be solved by throwing more hardware at it. That’s a much better solution for Twitter than having people use their service less.

I don’t know though, I still think the Fail Whale is kind of “cute”…..in an annoying and exasperating kind of way. Sort of like when you’re watching a movie on TV and it goes into a commercial. You start mumbling something about “stupid commercials, why do they have to put commercials in movies…”, and then you notice puppies running all over the screen and you go, “awwwwwwww”. Before you snap to your senses and go back to the “stupid commercials” rant.