98% isn't much(whynothugo.nl)
501 points by speckx 22 hours ago | 330 comments
tl;dr: 98% support sounds high, but for basic expectations it's actually terrible—leaving out millions of users or, in the author's real case, 30% of a specific site's audience despite a feature being "widely supported" globally. Robust engineering should gracefully handle edge cases rather than treat 2% failure as acceptable, since general population statistics don't map cleanly to any given site's actual visitors.
HN Discussion:
  • 98% is acceptable; diminishing returns make chasing edge cases impractical for business
  • Percentages mislead; odds-notation reveals how significant that 2% gap really is
  • Small failures compound and drive away users beyond the immediate 2% affected
  • ~Whether 98% suffices depends on domain—partial credit works for CSS but not safety-critical contexts
  • Treating users as statistics is ethically wrong; each excluded person matters