I guess this is applicable to any social media platform or other similar systems. Is it because there are always bugs to address, so it’s never really running smoothly, or other reasons?
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I think the question is even simpler than what the responses are being given.
Basically (though I’m not an expert), there’s two problems. But the misconception stems from thinking of Twitter as just a version of Microsoft Word sitting static on your PC…if you didn’t get updates on a MS Word, it would continue to work for years….maybe indefinitely.
But the amount of code and data required to keep a website like Twitter up and running is staggering…..and it’s constantly changing…which means the data is being copied. And there’s an error rate in transcribing all of those 0’s and 1’s as they move from storage device to storage device. And when there are transcription errors the fault handlers don’t always work and weird things happen with the code that makes its way back to the users. Someone has to figure out what went wrong with which part oft he code and fix it.
And secondly, there’s an error rate with the physical infrastructure itself. It could be equipment failing (or being replaced before it fails), or outside cabling being damaged, etc. eventually that makes its way back to the end user and someone upstream has to figure out what went wrong.
And don’t forget hackers. They’re like terrorists who are constantly trying to burn the whole thing down and someone inside Twitter has to fight them off.
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