Major Online Outages Hit Users As Spotify and Google Services Begin to Rebound

On Thursday afternoon, several well-known online platforms, such as Spotify, Discord, and Google, experienced notable outages, as reported by Downdetector, a tool that monitors internet service interruptions. Although Amazon Web Services faced some issues, the company claimed operations remained stable. The setbacks stemmed from service disruptions at Cloudflare, which attributed the problems primarily to a Google Cloud outage. A Cloudflare spokesperson confirmed, “This is a Google Cloud outage.” While a limited number of Cloudflare services were affected, it was anticipated that operations would resume shortly. Google acknowledged they were “investigating a service disruption” for certain services. As recovery began, Downdetector noted that issues impacted around 46,000 Spotify users, along with thousands on Discord and Google Cloud. Notably, Google Cloud is a major internet infrastructure player, holding 12% of the global cloud market. Past incidents, like an AWS outage in 2021, highlight the fragility of online services. Overall, the internet's resilience continues to be tested.