When the Internet Stops: How One Glitch Caused Chaos

Waking up to a world where your favorite apps and services are suddenly gone. That's what happened early Monday morning when Amazon Web Services (AWS) had a major outage. AWS supports millions of websites, so when more than 100 of its services went down, it caused a ripple effect across the internet. People couldn't use WhatsApp, Venmo, Hulu, or even order coffee through the Starbucks app. Airports were especially chaotic. United and Delta's apps were down, making it hard for travelers to check in. Long lines formed, and some flights faced minor delays. This happened just as airports are already struggling due to a government shutdown and a lack of air traffic controllers. The problem started around 3 am ET and lasted until at least 10 am ET. AWS is still figuring out what went wrong, but it seems to be related to a problem with their database service. This issue affected other services that rely on the same infrastructure. This isn't the first time a major outage has caused widespread disruption. Last year, a different outage caused by Crowdstrike led to thousands of flight cancellations and cost Delta $500 million. These incidents highlight how dependent we are on a few companies to keep the internet running smoothly. When a small glitch can cause such big problems, it's a reminder of how fragile our internet infrastructure can be. It's something we often take for granted, but outages like this show just how much we rely on these services.