I can't sign in to Xbox online 🇸🇪

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It is during digital breaks, even short ones, that you realize how incredibly vulnerable our society is. Simple power outages or computer problems often mean that we cannot buy a Plopp from Willys because the stores' systems can no longer accept money - not even cash - without a connection. This is something we should absolutely review as a society, because if we see it, even enemies outside the country know about it and would try to exploit it in the event of the worst.

But... It wasn't quite as serious during the evening, but me and my brother were going to play some Fall Guys via Xbox, only to realize that we couldn't log in. A complete stop with a mysterious message and a meagre amount of updates and clear messages from Microsoft. I have several consoles (for work and convenience reasons) and this particular one was not set as my home Xbox.

And since I couldn't log in online, I wasn't allowed to play either. Not a disaster though, I didn't fear that Microsoft had conked or that they stealth-killed their online service so I knew it would come back. But now it's been five hours and it still doesn't work for me. The problems of developed countries. I'll survive an evening without Fall Guys with my brother, but what will it look like in twenty years?

Will my home Xbox still work and how has the system changed? There is an imminent risk that the fully digital world will cause us to lose just about all the games we own on the day services are shut down. It's nothing that concerns me today, other than in the case of short interruptions in online services, and maybe I won't even care in twenty years (seriously, what does the world even look like then, with today's pace and AI it feels almost abstract) - but I'm not going to lie. It's not a pleasant thought, and something I wish it was talked about. Let the games work through thick and thin.