A Google Cloud bug causes a midnight outage that disrupts Gmail, Spotify, and OpenAI services: A five-point narrative

Here's the full story behind the major internet disruption caused by a Google Cloud outage, summarized in 5 key points:

1. Root Cause – Google Cloud IAM Failure
   A critical bug in Google Cloud’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) system on Thursday caused widespread disruptions. The failure affected user authentication and permission handling, leading to access errors across apps and platforms that rely on Google Cloud infrastructure.

2. Impact – Global Disruption Across Major Platforms
   The outage hit several major services, including Gmail, ChatGPT (OpenAI), Spotify, and Google Home/Nest smart devices. Users reported login failures, broken features, and strange error messages beginning around 1:51 PM ET. The disruption affected both consumer apps and developer platforms.

3. Delayed Acknowledgment – Google’s Response Timeline
   While affected users and tech leaders began flagging issues on X (formerly Twitter) early, Google officially acknowledged the problem only at 6:16 PM ET, confirming it was tied to IAM service failures. Google Cloud's status dashboard showed updates and gradual recovery, with most services restored by late evening.

4. Ripple Effects – Cloudflare and Developer Platforms Also Affected
   Cloudflare, which provides security and content delivery for many websites, also experienced problems—though it clarified the issue was limited to components that depend on Google Cloud. Replit CEO Amjad Masad was among the first to publicly identify Google Cloud as the source of the outage, which Google later confirmed.

5. Wider Concern – Centralization of the Internet
   The incident reignited debate over the centralization of internet infrastructure, where just a few cloud providers—like Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure—host critical global services. Though resolved within hours, the outage has renewed calls for more decentralised, resilient systems to avoid similar single points of failure in the future.

In short, while the outage was brief, it served as a wake-up call about how vulnerable the modern internet is to the failure of just one backend provider.