Comment by poulsbohemian

I did SRE consulting work for a phase of my career... as the author points out, these systems are scaled out and resilient, but what happens next is entropy. Team sizes shrink, everything starts to be viewed through a cost cutting / savings lens, overtaxed staff start ignoring problems or the long-term view because they are in firefighting mode, it becomes hard to attract new talent because the perception is "the good times are over." Things start to become brittle and/or not get the attention needed, contractors are brought in because they are cheaper and/or bits get outsourced to the cheapest bidder... the professional care and attention like the author clearly brought just starts to shift over time. Consultants like me are brought in to diagnose what's wrong - the good staff could write our briefs, they know what's going on - and generally we slap a band-aid on the problem because management just wants to squeeze whatever value they can out of the assets rather than actually improve anything.