🧭 Scenario · Make the call
The server that makes everyone wait in line
The situation
A small web server takes one request, finishes it completely, then takes the next. Most requests need to fetch something from a slow database and spend most of their time just WAITING for that answer. While one request sits waiting, the server does nothing else — it won't even start the next person's request. So during busy times, a quick request can be stuck behind someone else's slow one, and the whole site feels frozen.
You haven't read about this exact system. That's the point — walk the three questions a designer asks: what's really wrong, what fixes it, and what does the fix cost?
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Diagnose
Read past the story. What's the REAL problem — not what the feature does, but what's actually going wrong?
Look past the story. What's the REAL problem here?