Message queues quietly keep modern systems sane. They let services hand off work without waiting, absorb traffic spikes, and recover from hiccups—so users see “it just works.”
The Big Picture: Why Queues Exist
A message queue is an asynchronous communication channel where producers send messages, a broker stores them, and consumers process them later. This decouples services, smooths spikes, and improves resilience. Messages are held until processed and deleted; each is handled by one consumer per subscription/queue. ([Amazon Web Services, Inc.][1])
Think of cars going over a bridge: the cars drive (produce), the cars sits at a light (queue), bridges (consumers) pick tickets when ready, and the bridge evens out busy rushes.
