What happens on the Internet every minute in 2020

In 2020, an unfathomable amount of digital activity takes place at all times. The ongoing explosion is the total output today of 4.5 billion internet users, a number that is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

This powerful Domo visual helps to capture what happens every minute in today’s hyper-connected Internet era and is the eighth edition since 2012.

What can we learn from the development of what happens in a minute on the Internet?

How the Times Changed

The Internet has been a catalyst both for the growth and demise of new companies and platforms over its relatively short history.

When we look at which brands appeared in the graphic in recent years, we can roughly map the prominence of certain technology segments and see brands with the most persistent power.

As you can see above, platforms like Tumblr, Flickr and Foursquare have shown some promise, but eventually have been omitted as they are relevant.

Meanwhile, technology firms like Facebook, Amazon and Google have had a strong staying power, and have evolved into some of the world’s largest companies. In this process, they are at the top of the food chain with long-term titans like Apple and Microsoft.

“The New Thing”

Not surprisingly, in 2020, much of the web landscape looks different. Here are some of today’s digital hot spots.

Transfers of cash

Close to $240,000 in transactions takes place on Venmo per minute. This has catalyzed PayPal, which has successfully evolved with Fintech trends. PayPal’s stock is now trading at almost all times.

Electronic Commerce

Even before the COVID-19 shuttered stores and increased online shopping, e-commerce was a booming industry. It is now estimated that 1 million dollars are spent online per minute. Every minute Amazon ships an incredible 6,659 packages to meet this demand.

Tools for collaboration

Tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams host 208,333 and 52,083 users in a predominantly remote working environment. Especially in the pandemic era, this trend seems to remain.

Accelerated sales

The accelerated world we are in today means that many businesses have no longer had a competitive advantage. As noted above, social media companies have declined and that is similarly reflected in the S&P 500’s average lifetime.

In the next few years a typical S&P 500 tenure is expected to shrink rapidly:

• 1964: 33 years
• 2016: 24 years
• 2027E: 12 years

Companies shave from these levels everywhere between 15-20 years, with estimates of further decreases. This metric symbolises the rapid development of the business environment.

What’s in front

It’s easy to forget that people are still very early on the Internet. But its rise to prominence and wide digitization of the world has left us with a very eventful schedule in this short period.

If the last decade is a reference point, it could be expected that competition between tech companies will continue to increase. After all, the reward in today’s digital economy is much more valuable.

All signs point to further Internet activity, if not 5G and its associated breakthroughs, possibly because of the steady increase of people who gain internet access.