Today, Amazon AWS experienced an outrage that affected many ebook reading services and apps. Amazon said the outage was likely due to issues related to the application programming interface (API), which is a set of protocols for building and integrating application software. This has resulted in the Kobo website not loading for many people and the library being unavailable. The Amazon Kindle e-reader and app for Android and iOS have also been down most of the day. The Marvel Unlimited app for Android and iOS are completely down.
Amazon has mentioned on their AWS website that some of the services have recovered, but it is mostly applicable to their largest clients. Disney Plus and Netflix are recovered and ditto with League of Legends, and Valorant. Other services, including Amazon’s Ring security cameras, mobile banking app Chime and robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot are also facing difficulties, according to their social media pages.
It a serious blow to the reading industry when Amazon AWS services has extended downtime. It really drives home, just how many companies are relying on cloud solutions for their digital content delivery and app hosting. Gone are the days when everyone used to have their own datacenters or rent multiple servers all over the world. This is why when Amazon goes down, it makes huge news, because it is a rarity.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
