That’s basically what happened to Amazon when, in an incredibly rare hiccup, its homepage went down for nearly an hour Thursday afternoon.

Pundits and investors have been chattering all week about the resilience of Amazon’s share price despite ending 2012 in the red. I pointed out in an earlier post that Amazon’s sales are growing at a faster clip year-over-year than Walmart’s during the big-box giant’s ascendancy in the 1990s.

So when that sales engine grinds to a halt, that’s a lot more money lost than it used to be.