Portfolio & Wired have a one-two punch on the future of broadband up. I've read that it takes 3-4 months for a salary increase to be "discounted" so that individuals move up the consumption ladder and no longer feel flush. With internet speed the latency seems far more attenuated; there's always a new application around the corner. The Portfolio piece notes:
Spurred by a new wave of Skype-linked families, Hulu-watching flash mobs, and HD-video downloaders, global internet traffic is likely to quadruple by 2012. That's an internet 75 times larger than it was just five years ago. It will be generating 27 exabytes--nearly 7 billion DVDs worth--of data each month. Start stacking those DVDs on January 1, and you'd be at the moon by tax time.
Technology moves fast. Can you believe that it was as recently as 2003 that sales of DVDs surpassed VCRs? Remember VCRs? Yeah, vintage technology ...
