We’ve come to expect certain things from the Internet, and from our web hosts that allow us to contribute to it and be a part of it. Nearly everyone h...
We’ve come to expect certain things from the Internet,
and from our web hosts that allow us to contribute to it and be a part of it. Nearly everyone has a computer in their home, and it can typically connect to the Internet in just a few seconds. And, we all hop onto the Internet at least a few times a day, and spend quite a bit of time on it while there. But things weren’t always this way. The Internet wasn’t always this huge, and we didn’t always depend on web hosts as much as we do now. And the differences between what the Internet is like now, and what it was like 15 years ago, are really quite fascinating.
One of the biggest ways the Internet has changed is simply in the number of people that use it. In 1996, there were only about 20 million Internet users in the United States, and that was at least five years after the Internet was actually discovered. Bill Clinton was President of the United States at that time, and when he left office he stated, “When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the World Wide Web. Now, even my cat has its own page.” Former President Clinton made a very good point – pointing to the fact that today, there are over 250 million Internet users in the U.S. alone.
And it’s not just the amount of users that has changed – the way they’re using it has changed as well. Back in 1996, when there were very few websites compared with today, people only stayed on the Internet about half an hour per month! Today, people do that even before they’ve had their first cup of morning coffee. In fact, the average American Internet user spends at least 30 hours per month online. And in actuality, that number is probably even larger than that.
These stats are important to anyone that’s considering hiring a web host and starting up their own website, because they show just how crucial the Internet has become to us. People spend more time online than ever, and that number is only increasing every single day. This is a major type of media now, and any business that wants to remain competitive must be a part of it. Otherwise you’re simply missing out on advertising and promoting your company to a large part of the population.
But there’s one more interesting stat that can’t go overlooked, and that has to do with a page’s loading time. The time it takes a webpage to load is of huge concern to business owners, and one of the first things they always ask potential web hosts. Today, we expect that webpage to be up and visible before we can even say “page,” and this shows just how far the Internet, and our expectations have come.
This is because, while in 1996 it took 30 seconds to download a webpage, today it takes only 6 – and truthfully, that estimation is also probably a bit low. Today, webpages can load in nanoseconds – and that’s what business owners are looking for.
While these stats are interesting, they’re also very helpful to business owners looking for a web host, or to start up their own website. These numbers show not only how important it is for everyone to have an online presence; but they also show owners what they can expect from their web host in terms of load times and the amount of usage, which translates into the bandwidth of any one individual website.
