Why do we trust cloud services? That’s simple: We trust cloud service providers because we don’t trust ourselves to build and manage computer services – and we desperately want the new and innovative services that cloud providers are offering. But trust is a fleeting thing. Steve Wozniak may have said it best when he said, “Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.” Yet how much of our lives is now based upon trusting key services to distant providers? Last night confirmed this reality for many people; the great Youtube outage of October 16 may have diminished the trust that many people had in cloud services.
A Quiet Evening…
It was chilly last evening. After all, it is October and we do live in Chicago. So neither Cindy nor I were surprised. Because it is becoming cold, we are starting to put on our more sedentary habits. Specifically, we have been having soups and chili. And last night, we had brats in marinara sauce. After dinner, we settled down to watch a little television. Cindy was going to watch “This Is Us” while I wanted to catch up on “Arrow”.
Everything was going serenely.
It had not been so the previous evening. We were having some trouble with one of the new Roku enhanced remotes. These devices use WiFi Direct rather than IR. And my specialized WiFi configuration was causing trouble for the remote. It was nothing serious. But I like things solved. So I spent six (6) hours working on a new RF implementation for my router. [Note: At 0130CST, I abandoned that effort and went back to my ‘last known good’ state on the router.]
…gone terribly wrong!
Yesterday morning brought a new day. I had solved the problems that I had created on Monday evening. Now, everything was working well – until the television stopped working. While I was watching “Arrow” and Cindy was watching “This Is Us”, I started getting errors in the YoutubeTV stream. Then I heard my wife ask the dreaded question: “Is there something wrong with the television?” And my simple response was, “I’ll check.”
At first, I thought that it might have been the new ISP hookup. It wasn’t. Then I wondered if it was something inside the house. Therefore, I started a Plex session on the Roku so that Cindy could watch “Ant-man and the Wasp” while I dug deeper. Of course, that worked well. So I knew that there must have been a different problem occurring. I wondered if YoutubeTV was the problem? So I tried it while disconnected from our network (i.e., on my phone which is on the T-Mobile network). When that didn’t work, I knew that we were part of a larger problem. My disappointment grew because we had just switched from cable TV to streaming YoutubeTV. But it was Google. So I figured it would be solved quickly.
I decided to catch up on a few Youtube channels that I follow. And I couldn’t reach them either. My disappointment grew into astonishment: could Google be having such a widespread problem? Since I had network connectivity, I searched DuckDuckGo and found many links to the outage. And we just happened to use all of the affected services (i.e., Youtube and YoutubeTV). My wife was happy to watch the movie. And I was happy to move onto something else – like Home Assistant.
And Then The Youtube Outage Occurred
As I started to think about this outage, I wondered what might have caused it. And I mentally recited operations protocols that I would use to find the root cause and to implement irreversible corrective actions. But those steps were currently being taken by Google staff. So I focused on what this might mean to end users (like myself). What will I do with this info? First, I can no longer assume that “Google couldn’t be the problem.” In one stroke, years of trust were wiped away. And with the same stroke, days of trust in the YoutubeTV platform were discarded. Unfortunately, Google will be the first thing I check when I go through my problem-solving protocols.
Eventually, I will rebuild that lost trust – if Google is transparent in their communications concerning the Youtube outage. Once I learn what really happened, I can let time heal the trust divide. But if Google is not transparent, then distrust will become mistrust. Here’s hoping that Google doesn’t hide it’s troubles. In the meantime, their customers should demand that Google fully explain what happened.