I think you're underestimating the scope of the impact and just how vital software is in the modern world. It's not just that people can't login to a system, it's that they simply can't get their work done, and some of that work is really very time sensitive and important. Auth0 is depended on by hundreds of thousands of companies. Tens of millions of people will have been impacted by this outage today.
I think it's actually because I'm beginning to realise how much I used to believe the importance of software and how maybe I no longer do.
For context I used to live in the UK which is probably, outside of South East Asia one of the most "online" societies (and miles ahead of the US in terms of things like online payments processing). I never carried cash, online orders for everything, etc.
I moved to Barbados towards the end of last year and let's just say there's a lot of low hanging fruit for software systems here. It takes about 4 months to get post from the UK, you can't really get anything from Amazon. There's a single cash machine that takes my card and sometimes it's out of money or broken and you can't open a bank account without getting a letter from your bank in the UK, with the aforementioned 4 month delay. Online banking doesn't exist. There was maybe 1 Deliveroo type service that was actually a front for credit card scamming and maybe 1 other food delivery app.
In a sense it has been so much more pleasant than life in the UK and not just because of the cheap beer and sunshine. If I have a problem I know my neighbours to speak to. I know the people in the bar, I know who can help me out if I ran out of money or needed food to tide me over.
This is all a bit 'trope of the noble savage', as if life was better off before all that technology or something. I don't believe that's the case however I also believe over-reliance/the belief in always-up systems reduces societal resilience. Certain things have to work, you have to be able to phone the ambulance and it comes (or alternatively know someone who could drive you to the hospital in a pinch), food has to get shipped in at some point, since a diet of cane sugar alone won't be sufficient. And for that supply chain technology, etc. is important. But there are many other types of software regarded as "vital" that I don't think are and the criteria for what is vital is actually a lot stricter than it can feel. And there's a lot more room for delay than we'd maybe feel when caught up in the tech bubble.
