When the Hype Train Crashes the Internet (Again)

Okay, so get this: Apple’s latest i-thingamajig, the iPhone 17 (because numbers just keep going up, apparently), launched pre-orders in China, and guess what? It crashed the entire damn online store. Yes, you read that right. The sheer, unadulterated thirst for a slightly shinier brick with marginally better camera specs brought down a multi-billion dollar tech giant’s e-commerce platform. You’d think after, oh, every single launch ever, they’d have this load balancing thing figured out, but nope! We’re still here, living in 2024, watching digital storefronts crumple under the weight of rabid consumerism.

The Irony is a Luxury Good, Apparently

I mean, is anyone actually surprised? This is Apple we’re talking about, the company that perfected the art of selling you last year’s tech with a new coat of paint and calling it revolutionary. And credit where credit’s due, their marketing team deserves a raise for convincing an entire populace that they absolutely need this upgrade, immediately, before the world ends or their TikTok feed stops loading properly. It’s a masterclass in manufactured demand, truly. Meanwhile, I’m over here still paying off my student loans, contemplating if my current iPhone 12 Pro Max (which, let’s be real, is perfectly fine) is going to spontaneously combust if I don’t upgrade.

Silicon Valley’s Greatest Hits: Overpromising and Underdelivering on Infrastructure

It just cracks me up. We work in an industry that prides itself on innovation, on building the future, on scaling to infinity and beyond. Yet, when it comes to the actual infrastructure supporting our own product launches, it’s like we’re still running on dial-up. Every single major product release from any major tech company seems to be a gamble. Will the website hold up? Will the servers spontaneously combust? It’s like a digital version of the Hunger Games, except instead of fighting for survival, people are fighting for the privilege of dropping a grand on a device that will be obsolete in 18 months. And we, the humble engineers and product managers, are left to pick up the pieces, pushing out