> While we check the forum regularly, sometimes topics get missed. Unfortunately this thread one slipped by us until today, when someone saw it and flagged it internally.

If it really got missed, then I don't understand how the thread was made private to only logged-in users?

Whoa, what? That's a much bigger red flag than the downtime itself.

Ok as long as we’re getting conspiratorial, something similar I observed has bugged me.

About a year ago fly awarded a few people in the forums, I think it was 3, the “aeronaut” badge. Basically just pointless bling for a “routinely very helpful” person or somesuch. Still, I can imagine it was cool to get it. No, it wasn’t me.

One person I saw with it absolutely deserved it: this person is, to this day, always hopping in and helping people; linking to docs; raising their own issues with a big dose of “fellow builder” understanding and empathy; that sort of person. My own queries typically led me to a thread that this person has answered. In short - the kind of helpful, proactive, high knowledge volunteer early adopter that every community needs - and a handful are blessed to find.

Then one day I saw this same person had offered — to one random newbie with build problems in one of the many HALP threads — a reply like, “maybe Fly isn’t the best option for you. here are some other places that can host an app”.

The thread was left alone and faded, like many when a lost newbie is involved. But 1 day later, I noticed this tireless early adopter no longer had their “aeronaut” badge.

I still refuse to believe my own eyes about something that petty.

Get out of here with this nonsense. We tell people when we’re a bad option all the time. Do you really think we have a desire (or time) to punish somebody for doing the same?

Also, here’s the long forgotten badge, still with 3 people… https://community.fly.io/badges/107/aeronaut

Michael - Don't take the bait.

As someone who has zero affiliation with Fly.IO other than a few PR's to their OSS(I don't even know Michael), I greatly appreciate the contributions they have given back to the community.

There are a lot of great hosting companies. Fly.IO stands out due to their revolutionary architecture and contributions back to the OSS community. I wish more companies operated like this.

It's understandable some are upset about an outage. But Fly is doing really interesting and game-changing things, not copying a traditional vmware, cpanel or k8s route.

Just as a reminder to what this company has offered back to everyone.

SQLite: Ben Johnson's OSS work around SQLite stands out. Fly.IO and his work have really made sqlite a contender. - https://fly.io/blog/all-in-on-sqlite-litestream/ - https://fly.io/blog/introducing-litefs/ - https://github.com/superfly/litefs - https://github.com/benbjohnson/litestream - https://fly.io/blog/sqlite-internals-wal/ - https://fly.io/blog/wal-mode-in-litefs/

Who really considered sqlite as a production option before Fly and Ben? Not me.

Firecracker: Firecracker is amazing, but difficult to debug when something bad happens. There aren't a ton of people in devops who would share what they have. If you've ever used Firecracker, you've really been helped a lot by the various guides they have provided back to the community like these: - https://fly.io/docs/reference/architecture/ - https://fly.io/blog/fly-machines/ - https://fly.io/blog/sandboxing-and-workload-isolation/

Their architecture is beautiful and revolutionary. They're probably the first or second ones to find a lot of the new edge cases as they grow.

It's a lot harder to be the first one over the wall than it is to copy. They've literally given the average developer a blueprint to build scalable businesses that compete with their own.