1999 Nostalgia: E-Commerce Websites That Can't Handle The Load

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the this-sounds-familiar dept

Let’s go back in time to 1999… E-commerce was a big hit that year, as a lot more people went online to shop for holiday gifts. It took many of the online merchants by surprise, as sites from big name brands crumbled under the load. Fast forward to this week, and… whoops… we’re hearing the same thing. Earlier this week Amazon’s website was knocked offline and today there are reports that Wal-Mart’s web store has crashed. While it’s not clear what caused either bit of downtime, these are (obviously) two very big merchants that you would think, by now, would have plans in place to try to avoid such downtime — especially during the holiday gift buying season.