Generally, one receives the quality of the product or service for which one pays. If you obtain something free of charge, then you really don’t have a right to complain, correct? Such would be the logic.
So when Google Calendar, the free scheduling record-keeper for millions of Google Drive and Android users, crashed the morning of June 30 and was out of service for a bit more than three hours for most users, there should have been zero complaints. Right? Wrong.
Let’s face it: In the Internet world, users are quite spoiled by new-gen IT and simply expect free services to serve them whenever they are needed. These folks ought to slow down and analyze the real world a little closer; even paid services are going to flatline now and then. Then, if there are complaints to be lodged, that’s when they should be submitted.
There was little patience exhibited June 30 on social networks Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Tumblr around this outage; they were among those seething with cryptic comments while the service was down. No matter that few of these users were paying for any type of service from the ad-supported Google platform.
Google first noted the outage at 6:47 a.m. Pacific time. eWEEK noted that the calendar was back up and running slightly before 10 a.m. Pacific time.
You can check on the status of several Google Web services here.
While the service was down, users trying to open Google Calendar were redirected to a page that said it was having a server error (pictured). Google hadn’t yet revealed the cause of the outage later in the day.
Apparently, the site problems extended to Google Hangouts, where some users were having difficulty joining conference calls through Calendar invites. Many of the Google Web services are interconnected through Google Drive.
It wasn’t known the morning of June 30 how widespread this outage went, but judging from the number of complaints on the social networks and from where they emanated, it was impacting users globally.