Massive tech outage brings down Amazon, Venmo, Snapchat, Perpexity: What to know

On Monday, a significant online outage impacted various well-known platforms, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon.com, Prime Video, Alexa, Snapchat, Robinhood, Perplexity, and PayPal’s Venmo. According to outage tracker Downdetector, users across multiple regions faced difficulties accessing these essential services. Initial reports suggest the source of the disruption was linked to AWS, as confirmed by Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, who noted that the outage stemmed from issues within Amazon’s cloud infrastructure. AWS, being one of the leading cloud computing providers, supports an extensive array of digital services, meaning that a single technical failure can trigger widespread consequences. In a status update, Amazon acknowledged that AWS was experiencing significant outage-related problems, which affected numerous websites and applications globally, including popular platforms such as Snapchat, Robinhood, and Coinbase. The company reported “increased error rates and latencies” impacting multiple services within its US-EAST-1 region, which is one of the largest data centers. The peak of the outage in the United States occurred at 1:04 PM IST, with over 15,000 users reporting issues. Of those affected, 50% had problems with the mobile app, 29% encountered difficulties on the homepage, and 21% faced challenges with the shopping cart. Additionally, Amazon.com, Prime Video, and Alexa experienced their own technical difficulties during this period. Venmo, the payment service operated by PayPal, also reported similar outages. Around 1:10 PM IST, Downdetector indicated that over 22,000 users in the US experienced disruptions with Snapchat, where 58% reported issues with the app itself, 38% faced server connection troubles, and 3% had problems accessing the website. The situation highlights the vulnerabilities of major online services reliant on cloud infrastructure.