Not since the Hindenburg disaster has there been a more calamitous example of technology over-reaching itself and leaving poor witless human beings and their dreams of escape in tatters.

Yes, we're talking, of course, about the Great Netflix Outage of July 31, 2016. Qantas never crashes, said Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. But Netflix does.

All across the world you could hear them scream.

"It won't load."

"I can't log-in."

"I'm missing Stranger Things… aaargh!"

How was anyone supposed to enjoy a bit of Netflix and chill without the Netflix? What were they supposed to do – just chill? Madness.

In the US, the outages corresponded with Saturday-night prime time, a disaster for the world's biggest video-on-demand service.

In Australia, the first reports of problems surfaced around 11am on Sunday, though there had been some reports of smaller outages in the days prior. The issue appears to have been cleared by around 9pm Sunday, with the peak problems spanning a three-hour period in the middle of the day.

On the Netflix page on aussieoutages.com, reports of service connectivity problems peaked around 1.30pm, with 1130 reports logged at that time.

Users across the country shared their issues, and their frustrations, in the comments thread.

"Down in Adelaide, pissed off," wrote one.

"Down in Perth, lift your game Netflix, we pay you for this," wrote another.

We've confirmed the errors are limited to web browsers and will affect sign-ups. We're working to fix this asap and will keep folks posted.— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) July 31, 2016

"Why couldn't it happen on a Wednesday," wrote a third, "not a Sunday when I want to sit my fat ass down on the lounge all day."

One user seemed to have a fix, though. "It's working again. You just need to throw your laptop at the wall."

The official word from Netflix is that "the outage was only web browsers. All apps and other devices weren't affected".

Netflix has not yet explained the cause of the outage, though the involvement of Trump-affiliated Chinese hacktivists working on behalf of Foxtel, which on Monday announced it was launching a new "Binge" channel, surely cannot be discounted.

Be that as it may, the outage prompted a plethora of memes from frustrated customers.

Que pasa con netflix #NetflixDown @NetflixLAT pic.twitter.com/fzaA9MifmB— LUIS :) (@MRLUIS724) July 31, 2016

In the grand scheme of things, a few hours without a home video service hardly counts as "one of the worst catastrophes in the world" (to quote broadcaster Herb Morrison's famous eyewitness account of the fiery crash of the Hindenburg airship in 1937).

But it does serve as a real warning to the streaming companies: if your business is built on the promise of instant access, everywhere, you had better be able to deliver.

If you can't, it just might go up in flames.

If you haven't heard of Stranger Things

Stranger Things was released globally on Netflix on July 15 and viewers have been raving about its creepy throwback tale. Set in 1983 in an outwardly average small town of Indiana, a young boy vanishes, which falls on the shoulders of the chief of police but the boy's friends take it upon themselves to find him with the help of a telekinetic girl who mysteriously appears.

It's a homage to 1980s pop culture and the setting and themes will be immediately familiar to anyone once besotted with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Stephen King.

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