That's where the "compensation" part of the original article comes in. If a company's doing this strategy right, they make it up to the customer in some generous way - "We'll give you a full refund and your next purchase is free" if the shopping cart says something is in stock and it isn't, "We'll pay for your remodel" if someone trashes your AirBnB, "We'll give you a free ticket" if you get bumped from a flight.

What some of the smarter big companies have realized is that emotions are fungible, and they work on a "last writer wins" basis. If you do something really nice for the customer after inconveniencing them (and it has to be more "nice" than the initial problem was "nasty"), they remember you making it up to them, not the initial problem. That shifts the cost of compensation back onto the company, which gives them an incentive to improve their systems, but also lets them trade-off occasional hefty compensation charges against getting 100% consistency & availability, which is impossible.