Amazon Web Services outage shows how easy it is to topple corporate powers

A massive crash of Amazon web services has caused chaos round the world. The sudden cut-out is reportedly due to IT issues, rather than a cyber-attack. But, it does show how easily billionaire-owned monopolies can be toppled.

The Guardian explained:

Amazon reported that the problem originated in the east coast of the US at Amazon Web Services, a unit that provides vital web infrastructure for a host of companies, which rent out space on Amazon servers. AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing platform.

The crash put a vast array of businesses out of action. These included apps like Roblox, Signal, Snapchat, and Duolingo. Amazon’s main retail site and its Ring doorbell app also failed.

Lloyds, Halifax, and RBS banking also had outages, as did HMRC. There were reports that up to 25% of the world’s top million websites went down:

#AWS servers are apparently down..

This affects 25% of the top million websites.

Sites like Amazon, Twitch, Roblox, Fortnite and Venmo are seeing outages. pic.twitter.com/J7pNq2M8Mm

— APE (@TheDefiApe) October 20, 2025

But, why isn’t anyone saying the quiet part out loud? Perhaps it’s not the best idea to allow corporate monopoly to such an extent that an outage at one company takes out 25% of the internet? Perhaps!!

Amazon Web Services takes the internet down

Dr Corinne Cath-Speth, head of digital at ARTICLE 19, a human rights organisation, said this showed the dangers of massive monopolies:

We urgently need diversification in cloud computing. The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies.

And, as Dr. Cath-Speth and her colleague Don Le explained:

The irony is striking: projects built on principles of openness, decentralization, and digital sovereignty—from open-source collaboration platforms to non-profit secure messaging services—all go dark the moment their commercial cloud provider experiences an outage.

Once again it’s being shown that tech lords Jeff Bezos have too much power – and that’s not to mention their wealth. Our increased reliance on a few massive firms for basic services puts us all in danger. And by undermining institutions and the media, it also threatens basic freedoms.

Capitalism and corporate monopolies are to blame for today’s outages. And, the crash is undoubtedly yet another sign – were it needed – that commercialisation is killing the internet.

Featured image via Unsplash/NASA