A Wired article reports on the relative demise of the hypertext protocol as other means of content acquisition / delivery (i.e. apps) begin to predominate. A convenient diagram illustrates the point.
The writers conclude:
The wide-open Web of peer production, the so-called generative Web where everyone is free to create what they want, continues to thrive, driven by the nonmonetary incentives of expression, attention, reputation, and the like. But the notion of the Web as the ultimate marketplace for digital delivery is now in doubt.
The Internet is the real revolution, as important as electricity; what we do with it is still evolving. As it moved from your desktop to your pocket, the nature of the Net changed. The delirious chaos of the open Web was an adolescent phase subsidized by industrial giants groping their way in a new world. Now they’re doing what industrialists do best — finding choke points. And by the looks of it, we’re loving it.
The NY Times picks up on a Boing Boing story, that indicates that there is another way of looking at the data, as indicated on the chart below.
Boing Boing notes: “Between 1995 and 2006, the total amount of Web traffic went from about 10 terabytes a month to 1,000,000 terabytes
The Times concludes