Every damn Well-Architected Framework includes multi-AZ if not multi-region redundancy, and yet the single access point for their millions of customers is single-region. Facepalm in the form of $100Ms in service credits.
It was also greatly affecting Amazon.com itself. I kept getting sporadic 404 pages and one was during a purchase. Purchase history wasn't showing the product as purchased and I didn't receive an email, so I repurchased. Still no email, but the purchase didn't end in a 404, but the product still didn't show up in my purchase history. I have no idea if I purchased anything, or not. I have never had an issue purchasing. Normally get a confirmation email within 2 or so minutes and the sale is immediately reflected in purchase history. I was unaware of the greater problem at that moment or I would have steered clear at the first 404.
Part of me wonders how much they're actually going to pay out, given that their own status page has only indicated five services with moderate ("Increased API Error Rates") disruptions in service.
Every AWS customer has a personal health dashboard that links the issues to their services which is updated much faster, and links issues to your affected resources. Additionally requests for credits are done by the customer service team who have even more information.
Wouldn't affected companies be incentivized to make a lawsuit about AMZ lying about status? It would be easy to prove and costly to defend from AWS standpoint.
Either way—overt lies or engineering incompetence—it’s disappointing!