Whoops, half the internet went dark

Beware the cloud. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [View on the web]( [Recode]( [Click to view images]( [A company you’ve probably never heard of caused half the internet to go dark]( The United States woke up to a bunch of broken websites on Tuesday morning after Fastly, a cloud computing services provider, experienced an outage that caused a swath of major sites to go dark. You've probably never heard of Fastly, but the company counts all kinds of sites and services as clients, everyone from e-commerce platform Shopify to payments provider Stripe to major news outlets like the New York Times. Even Vox Media, which owns this site, was affected by the outage. So far, it doesn't look like there was any foul play — which is saying something since the US has seen an uptick in high-profile cyberattacks over the last few months. But it has also seen an apparent uptick in outages at cloud providers like Fastly, Cloudflare, and Amazon Web Services that affect large sections of the web. It makes you wonder just how easy it might be to turn off the internet by accident. Recode's Rebecca Heilweil explains the Fastly outage and whether we should be worried about this happening more often. [Click to view images]( [Is there a housing bubble?]( Houses are getting more and more expensive. There’s a simple fix for that. [ Jerusalem Demsas / [Vox]( ] [Click to view images]( [The emptiness of “couple goals” TikToks]( It’s easy to pretend like you’re in love when there’s clout on the line. [ Rebecca Jennings / [The Goods]( ] [Click to view images]( [Elon Musk paid $0 in federal income tax in 2018: Report]( You might not be as rich as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but you probably paid more in taxes than they did. [ Matt Novak / [Gizmodo]( ] [Click to view images]( [Farewell, millennial lifestyle subsidy]( The price for Ubers, scooters, and Airbnb rentals is going up as tech companies aim for profitability. [ Kevin Roose / [New York Times]( ] [Click to view images]( [What hackers can learn about you from your social-media profile]( That post you "liked" on Facebook? Your alma mater on LinkedIn? They are all clues that can make you — and your company — vulnerable. [ Heidi Mitchell / [Wall Street Journal]( ] [This is Cool Section Title] [Remembering the Spitfire]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Facebook]( Twitter [Instagram]( [Recode by Vox]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Manage your [email preferences](, or [unsubscribe]( to stop receiving emails from Vox Media. View our [Privacy Notice]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.