What if Google stopped working half an hour

Most of us do not want to imagine it and if we do, we only visualize panic and fury. Something never seen as addicted to Google as we are dropping Google simply for half an hour could trigger that at the very least. We would enter into a situation of unimaginable nervousness. But would it be a normal reaction? What does Google give us that nobody is able to give? What would actually happen if the most popular search engine on the planet fell for 30 minutes?

To get an idea of ​​the dimension of the matter. We are going to look at two faults that affected the search engine a few years ago . In January 2014 for example “overhead” at one of its centers in Europe produced a “cascade effect that extended the problem to other data centers”. The ruling mainly affected Gmail and yes that day many felt that the world was over . One of the services of the almighty Google had fallen!

Many reacted on social networks by mocking those who cried out to heaven, who saw what had happened as a hecatomb. They criticized that those who were born with Google under the arm could not survive without the search engine.

Another similar incident occurred in August 2013, when the “blackout” was suffered by all its services including YouTube, Analytics and Drive. Users got into cholera, the ruling lasted only five minutes. The world’s Internet traffic fell by 40 percent. The company lost more than $ 500,000, according to search engine expert Danny Sullivan. So imagine what could happen if Google falls for half an hour.

The consequences of 30 minutes without Google

Millions of people use Google every day. The traffic that has the search engine surpasses the imaginable. We consulted Google for everything. What if we have a cold we go to the doctor Google. If we want to know the benefits of carrots, Google. We want to know what has been written about a topic or news, Google. Our routine, our life is linked to the search engine in a certain way.

We always expect him to solve our doubts to find the solution we are looking for. Most of the time it does and it is very rare that the service does not work properly. That’s why experts say it’s very unlikely that Google will stop working for 30 minutes. The platform has mechanisms so that this does not happen.

However, situating ourselves in this hypothetical scenario, what would be the consequences? What would actually happen? The answers have a software engineer from Google himself, Ashish Kedia who has drawn up a list with the consequences:

Stupefaction

“In the first few minutes, people would check their Internet connection, some would call their service provider, others would even check their hardware, something much more feasible (than the fall of Google).” Come on, that our first reaction would never be to think that Google has fallen, we would think that the fault is the fault of our Network or our devices.

Reactions in social networks and anger

After several minutes, “we would realize that it is true.” There would be a moment of disbelief, people would try desperately to update the Google homepage again and again. After those minutes of stupefaction, surprise and annoyance would come.

“Users around the world would start taking screenshots of Google’s error page and Facebook walls would be filled with phrases like “Oh my God! I can not believe it!” accompanied by the images Of error.

Fall in productivity

Beyond this, there would be a sharp drop in productivity around the world. Many users use applications or services owned by the browser, such as Gmail. “I can not even imagine the loss of revenue not just for Google, but for all the companies in the world that use Google.”

Benefits for competition

In the midst of all this mess, not only are there losers, but also those who profit: Google’s competitors. According to this engineer, “people would look for alternative search engines” in case of knowing alternative options. Of course, Bing and Yahoo for example “would experience huge sudden increases in traffic and (the private navigation engine) DuckDuckGo would become a holding on Twitter.” The Google engineer says that “employees of other companies in the competition would enjoy and sing for joy.”

Effects beyond the Internet

It should also be noted that the Mountain View company not only dominates the Internet but also owns the most used operating system in the world: Users of Android and also iPhone users who were using applications like Google Maps would lose the connection and be left behind, there could still be exceptions.

What would happen when services were restored?

The “return to life” of Google services would also bring a series of performances. The company for example, would be forced to “launch a press release explaining the reasons. In addition, technology specialists from around the world would try to find the cause of the blackout.”

Of course, says Kedia, many would speculate with the idea that behind the ruling could be a group of hackers. The media would react and try to contact experts to analyze the situation and the network would be filled with articles asking a thousand and one question: “How is it possible that we depend so much on Google?”, “Why did it happen?”, “Did you access my data?”, “Is it true that Google has been hacked?”, “10 things to do when Google falls again.”