On Monday, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant's cloud computing division, experienced a significant outage that led to widespread connectivity problems for numerous companies across the globe. The disruption affected a variety of popular websites and applications, including the battle royale game Fortnite and the social media platform Snapchat.
In an official update posted on its status page, AWS stated: “We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region.”Several high-profile companies quickly attributed their service interruptions directly to the AWS outage. Among them were the AI startup Perplexity, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and the stock trading app Robinhood.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas addressed the issue in a post on X, writing: “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”
What is AWS and Why Does It Matter?
AWS is a leading provider of on-demand computing power, data storage, and other essential digital services to businesses, governments, and individual users. When disruptions occur in its server infrastructure, they can ripple outward, causing cascading outages for any websites, apps, or platforms that depend on AWS's cloud hosting. This makes AWS a critical backbone of the modern internet economy. The service competes directly with similar cloud offerings from Google and Microsoft.
AWS and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment regarding the incident.
The outage extended to Amazon's own ecosystem. According to data from the outage tracking website Downdetector, Amazon’s primary shopping website, the streaming service Prime Video, and the voice assistant Alexa were all experiencing significant issues during the event.
The gaming industry felt the brunt of the disruption, with several major titles reporting downtime. Fortnite, developed and owned by Epic Games, was among the most affected, alongside Roblox, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans, Downdetector reported.
Financial services were also severely impacted. Payment platforms like PayPal’s Venmo and the digital banking app Chime faced outages, preventing users from completing transactions or accessing their accounts, according to the outage tracking site.
In the transportation sector, Lyft—the primary rival to Uber—saw its mobile app go offline for thousands of users across the United States.
Even encrypted messaging was not spared. Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the platform's troubles in a post on X, stating that their service was hit by the AWS outage as well.
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