Very likely that a lot will, but this isn't a big VC-funded thing where we measure success by growth and profit. If we have enough users to maintain a lively and interesting community and can slowly grow after that, still a win for us.
i think in future perhaps instance owners would have a temp place holder page; stating that the instance is down - please select an alternative from the list below. that way at least people get some idea of what's going on and how to move forward from it.
The database stuff was solved today. The bigger job, happening as we speak and hopefully finishing in a week or two, is ripping out all the WebSocket stuff and replacing it with simple HTTP. No more crazy updating feeds and weird buggy vote numbers, on top of the performance stuff.