Amazon Web Service’s Christmas Eve Outage Reignites Concerns Over Cloud Monopoly Risks

December 24, 2025

There are reports of another major outage at Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, on Christmas Eve.

Soon after, outage-tracking service Downdetector posted that user reports had been flagging problems with Amazon Web Services since 8:41 p.m. EST, asking followers how the disruption was affecting them and tagging the issue with the hashtag #AmazonWebServicesDown. The service also directed users to its dedicated AWS status page, where live charts showed a surge in complaints tied to the cloud giant.

Downdetector data indicated 3,659 reports of AWS outages as of 10:52 p.m. (EST). Amazon Web Services did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.

Image Courtesy: Downdetector

 In a post on X, The Kobeissi Letter said “Amazon Web Services has crashed with tens of thousands of websites currently down,” adding that it was the “3rd large-scale crash in Amazon Web Services this year.” The tweet included a chart showing AWS outage reports spiking sharply over the prior 24 hours, underscoring the sudden and severe nature of the incident.

The latest disruption follows an earlier AWS incident that knocked out key online platforms including Disney+, Reddit, McDonald’s app and United Airlines, after a DNS issue in the us-east-1 region affected more than 70 services, according to prior reporting. During that episode, Amazon engineers said they pursued “multiple parallel paths” to restore functionality as businesses and government websites struggled with elevated error rates and latency.

On Christmas Eve, social media users reported outages across multiple websites:

Earlier this year, lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) argued that if one company can effectively shut down large parts of the internet during an outage, it may be “too big,” calling for tougher antitrust and resilience standards for cloud operators. For markets, each new incident raises questions about operational risk, potential regulatory action and the costs companies may incur to build redundancy across multiple cloud vendors.

The fresh wave of outages highlights the systemic risk created by dependence on a handful of cloud providers, where technical failures at a single company can ripple across airlines, media platforms, financial apps and government portals. Investors and policymakers have been scrutinizing AWS’s dominance as repeated disruptions expose how concentrated infrastructure can “break the internet” for millions of users at once.

Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings indicate Amazon stock has a Quality in the 82nd percentile. Here is how the stock ranks on other parameters. AMZN ended the day 0.1% higher at $232.38.

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Photo Courtesy: Sundry Photography on Shutterstock.com

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Shivdeep Dhaliwal

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