Amazon outage exposes internet's fragile backbone

Millions of people around the world were left frustrated on Monday after a major outage hit Amazon Web Services (AWS), disrupting access to popular apps and websites, including Zoom, Amazon Prime and Snapchat's online services. 

"In total, it was only down for about two hours, but the impact was massive," says tech journalist Toby Shapshak.

He explained that the problem was linked to DynamoDB, a core database service supporting user credentials and data. 

He described the incident as a reminder of how heavily the world relies on just a handful of cloud providers, with Amazon, Microsoft and a few others powering much of the internet’s infrastructure.

Shapshak added that the outage revealed the fragility of modern digital systems, where a single technical fault could cascade into worldwide disruption. 

"Someone sneezes and the world catches a cold. Really, this DynamoDB had a hay fever attack, and look at the impact on the rest of the planet. This is the butterfly effect in computer terms, in server terms. It's quite remarkable how it brings us down, and there really is nothing you can do about it until someone turns the switch back on at the data centre side. There's nothing any of us can do."

The incident has reignited debate over whether companies and governments have become too dependent on a few tech giants to keep the digital world running.

To listen to Shapshak in conversation with 702's Bongani Bingwa, use the audio player below: