[gabrielroth]

I think the post makes the distinction very clearly. First we hear about Netflix doing this surprising thing on purpose. Then we hear about the Stack Exchange guys pulling out their hair to fix a recurring problem. But "even in our time of greatest frustration, I realized that there was a positive side to all this." Where's the ambiguity?

[buddydvd]

This is where the distinction is made: "Who in their right mind would willingly choose to work with a Chaos Monkey? Sometimes you don't get a choice; the Chaos Monkey chooses you." But, the final takeaway point of the post blurs that distinction: "the best way to avoid failure is to fail constantly." Stack Exchange didn't "choose" the "best way to avoid failure" -- the problem chose them. Netflix, on the other hand, did make that choice. The article is written as if Stack Exchange followed Netflix's path and chose to fail constantly when it didn't.

[billybob]

This is a good point; I didn't notice this until I read this comment.

Would have been interesting if the post had ended with "so from now on, we're going to use the Chaos Monkey."