“Nightmare” Zipcar outage is a warning against complete app dependency
An app outage that locked numerous rental car customers out of their vehicles is a reminder of the perils of completely relying on apps for basic functionality—especially when those apps have seemingly limited support resources.
Zipcar is a car-sharing service that lets customers pay a membership fee to rent vehicles. Users use the Zipcar app to locate cars, unlock and lock them, share images of the vehicle (for proof that you didn't damage it), and report concerns. One typically goes through the entire Zipcar rental process without interacting with a human. Avoiding car rental lines and customer service representatives seems efficient until the app utterly fails you.
As reported by 404 Media today, Zipcar experienced an outage on Friday that prevented the app from functioning properly for numerous users. Without the app support, people could not unlock cars to start rentals, open cars that didn't come with keys, lock cars, and/or return cars before their rental period expired.