Pam’s Colecovision was her babysitter, from the age of 4 or 5, but the family only had one game. Over and over, hour after hour, she’d climb and jump through the three levels of Donkey Kong. But the real love affair began with the NES and Dragon Warrior, when she first experienced the depth and immersion possible in video game worlds. She’s been hooked ever since and will be playing in the retirement home. In her spare time, Pam also dabbles in foreign languages, watercolor painting, and reads a lot of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror.
Users trying to access various Amazon Web Services, including the Amazon website, are reporting outages. Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides cloud computing and a wide range of on-demand technology services over the internet. It provides the backbone for countless online experiences, ranging from multiplayer game servers to Ring doorbell services to voice assistants. On the rare occasion that Amazon Web Services experiences a hiccup, the effects can extend to a wide range of seemingly unrelated services that rely on AWS to operate smoothly.
Amazon Web Services and Many Sites Using It Are Experiencing Problems
Beginning around 12 AM PST on October 20, users attempting to access the Amazon website began encountering problems. While the site still loads and it’s possible to view items, order statuses and other personal account information were unavailable. Website users also report having issues viewing their cart, and completing purchases is uncertain. Likewise, other aspects of Amazon Web Services are experiencing problems, as are many companies that use AWS. These include Alexa, Ring doorbells, Snapchat, Crunchyroll, and Canva, as well as games like Roblox and Fortnite. While Twitch seems to be functioning problem free, Amazon Luna and Amazon Prime Gaming are both down.
AWS has dealt with outages in the past, but the current incident marks one of the more widespread disruptions of 2025. At the time of writing, the Amazon Web Services status checker is reporting one completely disrupted service and 26 impacted, focused in the US-EAST-1 Region, one of the most heavily used data centers. According to the site, engineers are actively working on the issue of “increased error rates and latencies” across multiple services, attempting both to understand what has caused the problem and to resolve it.
