[lukan]

"If a photo-sharing app is down at 3am, I'm sure the users can go to sleep and wait till 10am"

There will be people, who will feel it is critical important to post some pictures at 3 am and they will get stressed, if it is not working (say people preparing an event and the pictures should be online the next day).

But .. whether that is worth that engineers must be on call, is a differnt question. I never had a job like this and I know I would never accept it as default for myself.

[em-bee]

just before going to sleep is the only time i do hobby stuff. in the morning i have to work. putting something off to the next day always means putting it off to the next evening. i don't care how long things take. i care that i can do them right now and then forget about them. if i can't do that then i have to keep the tasks in my mind. i can write them down, but that only helps if i have a habit of doing that.

sometimes i remember some important message i need to send colleagues or clients... for that i like the telegram feature where i can send a message with a delay. i can write it now and it will be sent the next morning or whenever i think is a good time. i wish my email client had that feature too.

[genericperson66]

It might be 3 am for you but 3 pm for the user

[dheera]

> people preparing an event and the pictures should be online the next day

They can use a different platform, print the pictures on paper, there are a million ways to deal with these kind of issues.

An earthquake could strike and the event might need to be postponed.

If nobody's life or health is at risk, it is not urgent enough to sacrifice someone else's health for it.

[lukan]

"If nobody's life or health is at risk, it is not urgent enough to sacrifice someone else's health for it."

I agree. But I think being on call is possible in a healthy way, if there are long enough brakes in between. Occasionally being a night on call is possible. (Well and normal if you have small kids, but having small kids and having to worry about getting an emergency call any minute, that would be draining)

[em-bee]

They can use a different platform

not if they already committed to this one. you can't make such a change in a few minutes. limitations are so unusual that nobody would expect them and be prepared. and even if they were known ahead of time, you are also not expecting the kind of situation where you have to upload pictures in the middle of the night.

[dheera]

They are pictures. They can skip them. They can run the event without it. They can print the photos on paper and hand them out. They can hand-draw posters, like everyone did in the 1700s. They can cancel the event. They can postpone the event.

This isn't a 911 dispatching system.

[em-bee]

if they are a business then none of these alternatives are acceptable. they could loose customers over this. and surely you are joking with cancelling or postponing an event over this. please try to be realistic. you have to consider that in our society we have come to certain expectations. these may not be ideal, but closing an online service at night is a violation of that. things would look different if everyone did that, but then i'd be the one offering night service and use it to beat the competition.