When Amazon's Computers Crashed, Much of the Internet Went With It
Thousands of businesses across the world lost access to vital systems.
On October 20, 2025, millions of Americans woke up to broken technology. Alexa devices couldn't respond, students couldn't submit assignments on Canvas, and people couldn't send money through Venmo or order groceries on Instacart. The culprit was a tiny software glitch at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing giant that secretly powers much of the internet. A routine update to AWS's Domain Name System gave out wrong directions for DynamoDB, a critical Amazon database. This single error cascaded into one of the year's worst internet outages, affecting 142 AWS services, delaying 4,000 flights, and causing 11 million people worldwide to report problems with over 2,500 companies.
Most people don't realize that just three companies — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — run the cloud services that power nearly every website and app we use daily. AWS alone controls about one-third of this market, hosting everything from Netflix to McDonald's mobile app to government websites. Twenty years ago, companies ran their own computer servers in private data centers, but today they rent this computing power from tech giants because it's cheaper and more efficient. The problem is what experts call "centralization risk": when AWS fails, it doesn't just knock out one website. Thousands crash simultaneously. Companies like Robinhood and Coinbase went offline, preventing traders from accessing their accounts. Meanwhile, Zoom meetings failed and corporate Slack messages wouldn't send, paralyzing businesses nationwide.
This outage reveals how fragile our "just-in-time" digital economy has become, where companies eliminate all backup systems to save money. Ponce Bank estimated losing $50,000-100,000 in just one day, while small businesses couldn't ship orders or process payments. Some companies that survived unscathed, like Atlanta's McKenney's construction firm, had diversified across multiple cloud providers, an expensive insurance policy most businesses can't afford. As more of daily life moves online, these massive single points of failure become increasingly disruptive.
Questions:
Why is it risky for companies to depend on just one internet provider like Amazon?
Do you think more companies should diversify across multiple cloud computing providers? Why or why not?
Robert McMillan, Belle Lin, and Sean McLain, “The Day Amazon Broke the Internet for Millions of Americans,” The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2025; Emily Peck, “AWS Outage Spotlights the Global Economy's Fragile Foundations,” Axios, October 20, 2025.
