Inside the AWS outage: 5 shocking facts Amazon didn’t tell you

Millions of people woke up to chaos on Monday when Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the backbone of much of the internet — suddenly went down.

The outage disrupted major platforms including Reddit, Snapchat, Alexa, Ring, Fortnite, Roblox, and even Amazon’s own systems, leaving users worldwide in digital darkness.

According to Amazon, the issue originated in its Northern Virginia data centre (US-EAST-1), one of its oldest and busiest hubs.

The problem began around midnight Pacific Time when a DNS failure in DynamoDB made thousands of websites and apps unreachable.

Though Amazon quickly rolled out fixes, a full recovery took several hours, sparking global panic and frustration.

1. Even AI went offline

The outage didn’t stop at entertainment. ChatGPT, Slack, Canva, and Venmo also experienced interruptions, showing just how dependent modern businesses have become on AWS.

Even banking apps faced payment errors, delaying transactions and bookings worldwide.

2. A Starbucks crisis

Starbucks’ mobile app temporarily crashed, preventing customers from placing online orders. 

Although service was restored quickly, it was enough to cause confusion during the morning rush.

3. Amazon’s stock rose instead of falling

In a twist no one saw coming, Amazon’s shares rose 1% despite the global disruption. 

Investors seemed unfazed, believing the company’s dominance in cloud computing remains unshaken.

4. Real people, real consequences

As reported by BBC News, a trainee accountant in London couldn’t pay for his vital certification exams due to the outage.

“It’s surreal that a cloud failure can derail my career,” he told BBC, a reminder that these technical collapses have deeply personal impacts.

5. A bad day for Amazon

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince called it “a bad day for Amazon” but warned that intentional internet shutdowns by governments could be a far bigger threat.