People who weren't able to go to work and aren't salary most likely won't be paid. Or, employers will have to pay to employees who performed no work. The money has to come from somewhere, right? Unless of course the government wants to spread the cost over all the citizens and cover all expenses. And everything that comes as a result of the lockdown or whatever you want to call it.

Ficticiously I can tell you that if I had servers located in that area and something happened where they couldn't be fixed remotely and were down (for an unrelated reason) I'd be pretty upset if the tech people or remote hands weren't at their job. Or the new motherboard couldn't be installed because the repairman wouldn't go to the colo. Why? Because my customers that are all over the world aren't going to give me a pass on this nor do I want to make excuses as to why things aren't working. Further, this was not an "act of god" in the sense of a disaster that there was no control over (a person made the decision to "suggest" nobody go outside and that will have consequences).

It's easy for people who have only minor things as a result of a lockdown (cancelled classes or you work for a big corporation or you are unemployed) but not everybody falls into the same category. We all aren't government employees who get paid regardless, right?

The point is simply that a cost benefit calculation needs to be done. (Like they do when they try to justify hosting the Olympics or Superbowl). The comparison (if correct I haven't checked) to Detroit is valid somewhat. Obviously in any case we can assume that if there was 1 or 2 of these bombings per month any city wouldn't be shutting down they would realize that it simply can't be handled that way.

Fwiw - I'm not in the Boston area and had no consequences as a result of the decision.

If I were the guy who was supposed to be working on your servers, I suspect I'd be much more concerned about the apprehension of a suspected terrorist (or murderer, if you prefer that term) than I would be with a customer's disapproval of a lock-down decision I had no control over. I don't see myself losing much sleep over the fact that you were "pretty upset".

I suggest then that you try building up from scratch a business using your own money, time and effort over the course of many many years where you have large customers that can and easily drop you and see if you feel the same way.

Have you ever owned a business where you have major customers that expect everything will just work and the buck stops with you?

Many things in the world work this way no excuses matter. Same as if you are taking a LSAT or MCAT test which will determine if you are going to get admitted to a good school or an OK school and something happens where you don't do well on the test it doesn't matter why. You suffer the consequences.

But many people do (live hand to mouth) and sometimes for circumstances that are beyond their control and sometimes of course simply because they make the wrong choices. My point is simply while it is great that you in particular had no issue losing pay (or I might have possibly feel the same way) not everyone would - I'm sure you will agree with that.

Not to mention that the crowd effect many people would simply make decisions based on what others are doing or social pressure.

Chances are the "tech people or remote hands" were on the job. Again, this wasn't martial law, folks that had reason to be out and about were out and about. If a colo felt it was important for staff to be on hand, there were likely staff on hand.

Maybe a particular student had an interview planned with admissions at a college and had no way to reschedule (parent took them, had to be back). And they would have made a good enough impression to get admitted to the school?

Maybe someone had a wedding planned (could have been a weekend just as easily, right?) that evening or a charity event and had paid deposits and had guests in transit and people didn't show up at the caterer. Who covers all these loses from a suggestion like this?

Forget whether these examples (as with the colo one) which are arbitrary mean anything to you in particular or matter at all to you.

I don't care at all about sports but I can understand a child being disappointed when he is supposed to go to a game with his father on a particular evening. (My point is not the merits of the downside I am presenting but rather whether it makes a difference to me vs. the child who misses the game).

"If a colo felt it was important for staff to be on hand, there were likely staff on hand."

I don't think you can assume that the employees at the colo would agree to show up just like that, that they wouldn't have pressure to not go (from spouses) or that they wouldn't have to cover for a spouse that worked at another job (say medicine or law enforcement).

The point is much resources were dedicated to catching this one individual (even the deployment of so many "assets" without respect to the impact it had on anyone at all.

Is the same concentrated deployment of assets being done in cities such as Camden, Newark, Detroit with high murder rates and daily crime?)

Shit happens. In this case it was a manhunt, but it could easily have been a highway accident, gas main break, flood or snowstorm that caused a student to miss an interview. I don't see your point.

I don't care at all about sports but I can understand a child being disappointed when he is supposed to go to a game with his father on a particular evening.

This has happened to my biz partner who promised to take his son to BoSox games and then had to cancel because of work. Kids gets over it.

I don't think you can assume that the employees at the colo would agree to show up just like that, that they wouldn't have pressure to not go (from spouses)

The same pressure could have been applied if the bomber wasn't caught, although over multiple days instead of just one.

Is the same concentrated deployment of assets being done in cities such as Camden, Newark, Detroit with high murder rates and daily crime?

As I mentioned in another post in this thread, yes you do see deployment of resources and police asking citizens to stay indoors when chasing armed suspects/gang suspects who have killed innocents. The search areas tend to be smaller and the deployment not as extreme, but then again the threats tend to be proportionally smaller (1-2 guys with handguns vs 1-2 guys with automatic weapons and explosives). I live in a high-crime city and have seen it happen first hand.

I was about a mile south of all of this in Brighton, and I can tell you that nobody I spoke with felt particularly scared. It was more like "let's stay inside and let them find this guy".