What was the internet like in 1999?

Napster arrives and the music industry discovers what a fast connection is for. A typical home connection was 56 kbps, there were about 3,177,453 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $30.

How long did it take to download a film in 1999?

A 4 GB film at 56 kbps would have taken about 6.9 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

How many websites were there in 1999?

About 3,177,453 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking.

The internet in 1999

Napster arrives and the music industry discovers what a fast connection is for.

3,177,453 hostnames · 56 kbps for most; DSL and cable modems arriving for a lucky few at 512 kbps and up.

Napster demonstrated, faster than any argument could have, that the thing most people wanted from a faster connection was other people's files. It also demonstrated the practical value of broadband: a three-minute song at 56 kbps took about ten minutes, and at 512 kbps it took one. Blogger made publishing a page as easy as typing into a box, which is the beginning of everything that followed about who gets to write on the internet.

The numbers

Websites: 3,177,453 hostnames responding to HTTP
Typical connection: 56 kbps — 56 kbps for most; DSL and cable modems arriving for a lucky few at 512 kbps and up.
A gigabyte of storage cost: $30, in 1999 dollars

How long things took to download

Assuming the connection ran at its rated speed throughout, which it did not. Real dial-up throughput after protocol overhead was typically 10 to 20 per cent below the modem's rating.
What	At 56 kbps
A 3 MB song	7 minutes
A 5 MB photo	12 minutes
A 700 MB CD image	1.2 days
A 4 GB film	6.9 days
A 50 GB game	87 days

What arrived in 1999

Napster
Blogger
Wi-Fi, as the 802.11b standard
The BlackBerry

Against the years around it

Year	Hostnames	Typical speed	$/GB of storage	A 4 GB film took
1998	2,410,067	56 kbps	$100	6.9 days
1999	3,177,453	56 kbps	$30	6.9 days
2000	17,087,182	56 kbps	$10	6.9 days

Between 1999 and 2020 the typical connection went from 56 kbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 1,786, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $30 to $0.020 — a factor of 1,500. The 4 GB film that took 6.9 days takes 6 minutes.

Common questions

What was the internet like in 1999?: Napster arrives and the music industry discovers what a fast connection is for. A typical home connection was 56 kbps, there were about 3,177,453 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $30.
How long did it take to download a film in 1999?: A 4 GB film at 56 kbps would have taken about 6.9 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.
How many websites were there in 1999?: About 3,177,453 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking.

The internet in 1998 Google is founded, and searching stops being useless.
The internet in 2000 The dot-com bubble bursts in March and takes most of it with it.
Every year side by side Speed, storage cost and site count in one table
Convert data units Bits, bytes, and why a megabit is not a megabyte

Sources

Web Server Survey — Netcraft
ICT Facts and Figures / World Telecommunication Indicators — International Telecommunication Union
Historical cost of computer memory and storage — Compiled from contemporaneous retail advertising and manufacturer price lists

How these figures are compiled and checked