Availability Is Permission

Availability is not uptime. Availability is permission to act.

When a system is available, it grants authority to submit intent and expects to honor consequences.

I. The False Equation of Availability and Health

Availability is often measured as:

uptime percentage

SLA metrics

health checks

green dashboards

This is insufficient.

Availability decides:

whether intent may be submitted

whether authority is currently granted

whether actions will be judged or ignored

That is permission.

II. Being Available Creates Obligation

If a system accepts a request:

it accepts responsibility

it enters a legal relationship

it must produce a result or a refusal

Partial availability is partial obligation.

Hidden obligation is fraud.

III. Rejecting Availability Is a Decision

When a system is unavailable:

it denies permission

it refuses authority

it prevents action

This must be:

explicit

observable

attributable to policy

Silent unavailability is coercive ambiguity.

IV. Degraded Availability Is Altered Law

Read-only mode, maintenance mode, and degraded operation are not technical states.

They are altered legal regimes.

Each mode must declare:

what is permitted

what is forbidden

what is deferred

what guarantees no longer apply

Undeclared degradation is unlawful governance.

V. Availability Shapes Fairness

If availability is uneven:

some actors gain access

others are excluded

timing advantages appear

Availability is distributive power.

Distributive power requires rules.

VI. Availability Must Be Recorded

A lawful system records:

when it was available

when it was not

under which mode

with what permissions

Without record, authority cannot be reconstructed.

VII. Replay Requires Availability Semantics

Replay must reproduce:

the same availability windows

the same denials

the same degraded modes

If replay assumes full availability, audit fails.

VIII. Infrastructure Availability Is Not Law

Load balancers, health probes, and orchestration platforms do not define permission.

They enforce it.

Availability law must live in:

kernel policy

registry configuration

versioned rules

Not in ops dashboards.

IX. Final Conclusion

Availability is permission.

A lawful system:

treats availability as granting authority

rejects explicitly when unavailable

declares degraded modes as policy

records availability states

replays permission deterministically

Anything else invites action without guaranteeing consequence or denies action without explanation.