We can think of Comcast's outage as a test of the emergency cloud broadcasting system and it failed miserably.
Imagine needing help during an emergency and being told, "Sorry, the can't reach the cloud so all your medical information is unavailable and we can't open our offices". We need to be very cautious about unnecessary dependencies and unnecessary tethering. The "cloud" (whatever people now mean by the term) can be an immensely useful resource but we have to be wary of dependency. Imagine having to navigate during an earthquake only to find the Google Maps doesn't work because it doesn't work if the cell towers are out - a distinct possibility during an Earthquake. At a simply annoying level it's often unavailable when traveling, especially for a US traveler abroad. Maybe more than annoying if you are lost.
