
A routine internal update at Cloudflare triggered a cascade of failures on Tuesday, knocking out swathes of the internet and leaving millions of users staring at frozen timelines, broken websites and baffling error messages. For several hours, major services – including X, ChatGPT and a range of government and retail websites ( as well as

AI promised freedom from drudgery—but for many, it’s just accelerating burnout and raising expectations. Where did it all go wrong?