(Note: In this alternate-reality tale, it is not my intent to minimize the human suffering caused by Covid-19, on the world, though am trying to call attention to out how ludicrous it is that the negligence of selected leaders is given a pass by many media vehicles and voters.
I’ve used Jeff Bezos and Amazon in this example solely because of their name recognition. I am not a customer of Amazon Prime or Amazon Web Services, though I have no intent to malign either. )
I suspect that I am not alone in that I am dumbfounded a lot lately by the disregard given to the elephant in the room which, ironically, is and infinitesimally tiny virus.
I can’t go into every aspect, but it’s especially perplexing that people in a country that has not been able to safely manage Covid-19 (or novel coronavirus, or (SARS-CoV-2) for the past seven months (despite advanced notice of its severity) are blaming other countries.
I pondered this for a few minutes and thought of a few possible possible analogous scenarios before settling on an example of a digital pandemic and reactions by a computer industry titan.
This is meant as a thought exercise. It is unlikely that anything of this scale would happen in real life. Though it not out of the realm of possibility.
(As Rod Serling used to say)
You’r Next Stop, The Twilight Zone:
- That in late 2019, a computer virus, that had begun to wreak havoc on digital infrastructure around the world, was determined to have originated in China.
- And that by April of 2020, many of the major players in the cloud-service space—Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon… were to be infected and suffered data losses.
- And by May of 2020, that Microsoft, Apple and Google were able to contain the virus and to restore most their customers’ lost data. Furthermore they tightened their security and disaster-mitigation plans.
- And throughout the summer of 2020, Amazon continued to experience daily infections of its own infrastructure that were passed on to tens of thousands of Amazon Prime, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers every day.
- And every day, several hundred to several thousand Prime customers had their profiles wiped, or worse yet, their personal information stolen.
- And AWS customers such as Disney, Samsung, Adobe, Dow Jones, had all of their AWS data deleted, or were subject to ransomware attacks…resulting in US job losses in the tens of millions, and substantial damage the US gross domestic product.
- And beginning in March 2020, and frequently throughout the year, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos heaped praise on himself at the “amazing job” he had done in addressing the “China virus”, while each day hundreds-to-thousands of customers learn that their data is lost forever.
Now ask yourself:
- Would Jeff Bezos have any credibility if, after a year of failing to publicly acknowledge the risk of the virus, he referred to the malware as the “China virus?”
- How many consumers, or large businesses would remain a Prime, or AWS customer, respectively?
- Would Amazon win any new customers?
- Would the Amazon’s board allow Bezos to remain in the CEO position?
