Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing platform that powers much of the internet, went down for several hours Monday, making several major websites and apps inoperable.

Although cloud service outages happen periodically, analysts say the main challenge around them is not an inherent technological vulnerability but the fact that the market is controlled by just a few big players. This means that when one provider suffers an issue, the impact on business and the economy is felt widely.

A problem at Amazon's cloud computing service disrupted internet use around the world early Monday, taking down dozens of online services, including social media site Snapchat, the Roblox and Fortnite video games and chat app Signal.

The widespread outage involving the cloud-computing provider Amazon Web Services was particularly disruptive ensnared unexpected consumers earlier this week: People who just wanted to sleep well.

The world's largest cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has experienced a major outage that has impacted thousands of organizations, including banks, financial software platforms such as Xero,

The outage took down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms.

A major disruption to Amazon’s cloud computing platform Monday exposed the fragile nature of digital dependency. When technical problems knocked the service offline, the ripple effects touched millions: Video gamers found themselves locked out of Fortnite,

When a technical issue disrupted operations at those facilities yesterday, it was enough to temporarily crash the internet for users around the world. The modern web owes that fragility in part to the cloud.