When people realised there's money in games, and there is no going back now, unless they think they can get more money by not having the MBA's in charge.
If it makes you feel any better, this is really the first I've heard of this happening since 2011. I just hope it's not a sign of worse experiences to come.
I'll echo the others. I had a ps3 when the network went down in 2011 and I haven't had an issue like that since. Granted I didn't play much for a couple years as I switched to PC gaming mostly, but I picked up a PS5 last year and the only connection issues are from my internet itself
I didn't use the ps+ service back then because you didn't need it for multiplayer games on the PS3, but I did get a couple free games (little bit planet and infamous were what I picked)
Anyways, welcome to the ps5! It's a very capable device for gaming or media. Also efficient at heating your room. I don't regret my purchase at all even though an outage like this is frustrating. There's some games that work offline and if you have the disc drive you can at least watch movies or get physical discs of games
Should we talk about how invasive PSN is to begin with? This appears to be a server issue, yet the network error blocks any application that uses the network, such as streaming services and games requiring a third-party login.
I doubt it's incompetence, it has to be a design choice. Just what kind of data is Sony collecting?