You're living in a different reality. I can't fathom how anybody could legitimately make that claim.
Even if you're defining "critical system" as "critical to humans" and not "critical to the business", then sure, you can say "Airlines aren't critical" and for most passengers, yeah, you're probably right. Most industries aren't critical, so businesses being ground to a halt doesn't matter for the consumers.
But 911 systems were affected, and those are certainly critical to humans. If 911 doesn't work, ambulances and fire trucks can't be dispatched, and people die.
EDIT: Computers attached to hospital beds, including trauma surgery rooms, were affected. I'm really curious what you think defines a critical system.
One interesting thing I saw is, per a snippet that claimed to be part of Crowd Strike's ToS, it shouldn't have been installed on any of those machines where human life depended upon it (along with no nuclear facilities and a few other exceptions). Is there going to be any fallout from people installing it on systems the software wasn't designed for? Did Crowd Strike perhaps know it was being installed on these systems but ignored it since they were getting paid and it wasn't them violating the agreement?
if a user does something the manufacturer told them specifically not to do, I have a hard time blaming the manufacturer for it. Within an approved use? absolutely, blame the manufacturer.
but if you shoot yourself in the foot, don't blame the bowyer just because they sold the bow to you.
The 911 system itself is critical sure. I never said it wasn't. When the computer systems supporting 911 went down due to crowdstrike, those functions were replaced with available backups, that were planned for situations like this, e.g. using analog phones and taking notes by hand (just like they used to do it).
If the system survives (albeit with diminished capacity) loss of a component, then that component is not critical for the system. That's basically the definition of "critical".
Even if you're defining "critical system" as "critical to humans" and not "critical to the business", then sure, you can say "Airlines aren't critical" and for most passengers, yeah, you're probably right. Most industries aren't critical, so businesses being ground to a halt doesn't matter for the consumers.
But 911 systems were affected, and those are certainly critical to humans. If 911 doesn't work, ambulances and fire trucks can't be dispatched, and people die.
EDIT: Computers attached to hospital beds, including trauma surgery rooms, were affected. I'm really curious what you think defines a critical system.