this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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More simply, replace uptime with downtime.
99% uptime and 99.9% uptime seem close.
1% downtime and 0.1% downtime is clearly a 10x difference.
Why not just give hours/minutes per year/month??
I have no intuitive feeling for what 0.078% is, but if it says: "average downtime of 44 minutes per month" or "7h per year" it's clear as day.
Percentage is good to see quick changes in relation. Having exact figures would be nice too, but that is not a replacement for percentage.
That still isn’t as good as just saying the hours…
I dunno. As the article says, the people that use those numbers know what they mean.
The article is about how everyone uses status pages nowadays…
Rather than guess at which percentage representation is more intuitive to people, the blog post suggests something more concrete:
I’ve been presenting numbers to people for a long time and I know they flip back and forth between “these percentages are abstract - what’s the actual total number?” and “how do I put these totals in perspective? What percentage is it?” The blog post suggests offering both, which is the right choice.
Also in addition 99 is interpreted in the brain very close to 100. That's why we have prices like 99.99. Just an additional thing to your excellent reasoning about the 10x difference look.