[throwaway019254]

I don't believe it's true. I was working on one of the biggest AWS services and we always deployed to small regions first.

@dijit is right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36315736

[foobiekr]

I have a suspicion that AWS uses some regions as canaries. Because we control both ends of things, I have personally noted that certain AWS functions clearly break in Australia first.