When the internet doesn't work
Amazon shuts down the net
On Monday, Amazon Web Services suffered an outage that affected numerous companies. I noticed when I asked my Amazon Alexa to play some sleep sounds and it kept giving me an error message. Later in the day…my Ring doorbell which looks over my Mother’s house wasn’t working. AWS is basically an IT cloud structure that helps power many businesses around the world with data, storage and computing power. When that goes down…everyone is in big trouble. Billions of dollars were probably lost on Monday. It got me thinking again…can I function when technology doesn’t work?
The internet continues to grow into something we can’t live without. We’ve become accustomed to certain luxuries on demand. Banking apps were down, streaming, social apps, flights were affected, and many productivity applications. This tweet has a full list of the companies down. You feel like a drug fiend constantly refreshing when your favorite mobile app isn’t working. It honestly is scary how I almost can’t function without internet access. The problem is..what can you do? The reality is we have no choice but to wait for issues to be resolved. What if my navigation app went out late at night on the road? What if my bank was affected and I couldn’t make any transactions? It sucks, but we are at the mercy of the internet(s).
I honestly don’t know what solution there is. My phone made me this way. 5G speeds, gambling, Instagram, etc…I need to be connected. But it wasn’t all bad as I sat with my mother on Monday and had a long conversation about life. You know…things we used to do before swiping up and checking for notifications every minute. In terms of emergencies, I’ve been planning to stash some cash around the house for moments like this. What would I do if Apple Pay is down one day? I do own a generator but also thinking about investing in a mobile router to fetch some internet in a bind.
This isn’t the first internet outage and won’t be the last. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not prepared for a major outage at all. I haven’t had to “rough it” in so long. Sh*t is just supposed to work, right? We talk about artificial intelligence all damn day, you telling me I have to unplug my router for 15 seconds? Reality is, as the internet grows, the energy consumption will only increase. The network will only become more crowded and strenuous. This is bound to happen a lot more in the coming years. Don’t even get me started on America’s enemies around the world and cyber attacks. It’s time to start planning for the worse…because I can’t live without my Instagram reels.