> Mainframes are really powerful for some specific domain which most people on HN don't work in.
Yeah, but the cases where mainframes run the show are the ones where stuff really matters, where actual human lives and existences are at stake: banks, insurances, governments, airlines, logistics. If Google has a day long outage, not much of value will be lost... but a large US bank, stock exchange or MC/Visa suddenly failing? That can be enough to trigger an actual bank run with all its consequences.
(Of course, the argument can and should be made that no company should grow large enough to even be able to be such a threat, but that one will have to wait until at least 2028 to get solved)
Yeah, but the cases where mainframes run the show are the ones where stuff really matters, where actual human lives and existences are at stake: banks, insurances, governments, airlines, logistics. If Google has a day long outage, not much of value will be lost... but a large US bank, stock exchange or MC/Visa suddenly failing? That can be enough to trigger an actual bank run with all its consequences.
(Of course, the argument can and should be made that no company should grow large enough to even be able to be such a threat, but that one will have to wait until at least 2028 to get solved)