Windows calls this APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing). A 169.254 address only lets devices on the same physical segment talk to each other; there is no gateway, so nothing reaches the internet. Fix: check the cable or Wi-Fi association, restart the router, or run ipconfig /renew.
Cloud platforms deliberately use this range for instance metadata endpoints: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all answer at 169.254.169.254. That address is a frequent target in server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks because it hands out credentials to anything on the instance.