Random Reasons Why Did Everyone Care So Much About Y2K (12 items)

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  (#8) People Prepared For The Impending Low-Techness

  The typically underground prepper community had their time in the spotlight during the months leading up to Y2K - their paranoia and hyper-vigilance values briefly went mainstream. Throughout 1999, survivalist classes proliferated, and online prepper communities were built.

  While stockpiling toilet paper, water, and nonperishable food was commonplace for preppers, some took it one step further and prepared for a life sans technology. In Michael Hyatt’s The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos, he urged citizens to learn how to “distinguish edible plants from those that are [dangerous]... [prepare] a cow [for food]... set a broken bone, pull a tooth, and deliver a baby.” Other tips included purchasing a side arm and learning how to use it.

  Some businesses and institutions also embraced the low-tech movement. Amish businesses really cleaned up, as few to none of their hardware devices required electricity. Meanwhile, a hospital in Colorado allegedly gave patients a whistle to call for the nurse in case the call buttons stopped working.

  While this may have been a watershed moment for the survivalist movement, the level of mass engagement with prepper logic was widely overblown by the media - most people didn’t give Y2K prep that much thought.
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  (#9) Third-Party IT Service Companies Received A Big Boost

  The world of IT was undoubtedly up and coming by the turn of the 21st century, but computer science was still considered niche information, and many experts were undervalued for their labor. Camaraderie among entire corporations and fellow IT workers alike was at an all-time high during the Y2K remediation process. Departments that previously had no contact with one another were suddenly collaborating, and information was being learned and shared at an unprecedented rate.

  The social and professional gains were not the only benefit. Y2K preparation, along with the dot-com boom that ran concurrently with the Millennium Bug frenzy, was "one of the single biggest drivers for packaged software."

  The telecom companies that had just purchased a massive swath of domains were now faced with the challenge of updating all their software and shifting applications onto different servers. These were venture capitalists, not programmers, so the option to buy pre-packaged software and services from third parties was an obvious solution with great mutual benefit.
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  (#6) New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Warned People That Storing Gasoline In Their Homes Was Far More Dangerous Than Y2K

  Energy secretary and former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson cautioned motorists against stockpiling gasoline before Y2K. There were two major issues with the idea: safety and the possibility of a shortage. In a press release published the week before New Year's Day, Richardson stated, "If you have half a tank, you're good to go. There's no need to hoard gasoline. Storing it in your house is not a good idea, way more dangerous than any 'millennium bug.'"

  In addition to the obvious fire risk on a holiday known for drunkenness and fireworks, the mass purchase of gasoline would create the very shortage that consumers were afraid of. Ultimately, most appeared to heed his warning, and the gas prices and stock did not stray far from their usual numbers. 
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  (#4) The Government And US Companies Spent Over $100 Billion On Becoming Y2K Compliant

  While the exact numbers vary between sources, the government and major US companies spent a bare minimum of $100 billion on Y2K compliance in the latter half of the 20th century. General Motors claimed to have spent around $626 million, Exxon reported about half of that, and the federal government estimated around $8.4 billion. 

  These figures do not take a number of factors into consideration. The amount spent mostly went to the billable man hours paid for research, investigation, and reprogramming. The real cost includes the acquisition of new machines for those that could not be updated, major publicity and information campaigns, and whatever litigation eventually stemmed from unforeseen glitches during or after Y2K. Some economists estimated a more realistic total of $150 billion spent.

  Despite this harrowing figure, many economists predicted that the updated machines and newfound importance of IT knowledge would boost the economy and create many new jobs. While the exact numbers are hard to place, it’s no coincidence that the tech industry would proliferate in the years to come.
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  (#2) The Government Set Up A $50 Million 'Y2K Command Center'

  In an abundance of caution, the US government set up a temporary Y2K command center, known as the Year 2000 Information Coordination Center (ICC). In the months preceding New Year's Day, the ICC was staffed with employees from other federal entities including FEMA, Agriculture, Commerce, the EPA, the military, and the National Weather Service, among others. 

  Using preexisting disaster frameworks used by these same agencies, the government took a "single point of contact" approach to solving the Millennium Bug issue, ensuring that all organizations were on the same page. In the final days before Y2K, the ICC was briefed on FEMA's Civil Disaster Response processes.
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  (#3) People Worried That Everything From Banking Software To Air Traffic Control Systems To ATMs Might Suddenly Fail At Midnight

  The media and the wider public saw the reasonable concerns held by the SSA and ran with them. Suddenly, everything that was computer-operated ran the risk of malfunctioning or glitching out, temporarily or otherwise.

  The possibility of hospital equipment failing weighed heavily on providers. Infusion pumps ran on timers that might forget what time it was, charts would become lost and inaccurate, and no one could receive necessary care when all of the computers shut down.

  To curb the consumer impulse to take out an entire account in cash in the days leading up to Y2K, bank programmers and IT departments had to update their systems, as well.

  Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration had a major headache on their hands when they realized that the air traffic control computers were likely to be affected. Based on their 1999 projections, systems that had not been updated could possibly malfunction and display plane positions on a 10-second lag, leading to potentially dangerous consequences. Thanks to a budget of over $400 million dollars, four years of planning and programming, and a series of potential contingency plans, the FAA was able to secure their systems with no issue in the new millennium.

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