What was the internet like in 2003?

MySpace, Skype, iTunes and WordPress all launch, and the social web starts. A typical home connection was 1.5 Mbps, there were about 40,912,332 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $1.

How long did it take to download a film in 2003?

A 4 GB film at 1.5 Mbps would have taken about 6 hours 13 minutes, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

How many websites were there in 2003?

About 40,912,332 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 2003

MySpace, Skype, iTunes and WordPress all launch, and the social web starts.

40,912,332 hostnames · Broadband at 1 to 3 Mbps for a growing share of households.

The year the web became a place people had profiles on rather than a set of documents they read. MySpace let anyone paste CSS into their own page, which produced a decade of unreadable glitter backgrounds and an entire generation who learned to code by breaking their profile. The iTunes Store was the first attempt to sell music online that people actually used, and it worked because it charged 99 cents rather than trying to sell an album. Skype made international calls free at a moment when they were still charged by the minute.

The numbers

Websites: 40,912,332 hostnames responding to HTTP
Typical connection: 1.5 Mbps — Broadband at 1 to 3 Mbps for a growing share of households.
A gigabyte of storage cost: $1, in 2003 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 1.5 Mbps
A 3 MB song	16 seconds
A 5 MB photo	27 seconds
A 700 MB CD image	1 hours 4 minutes
A 4 GB film	6 hours 13 minutes
A 50 GB game	3.2 days

What arrived in 2003

MySpace
Skype
The iTunes Store
WordPress
LinkedIn
Second Life

Against the years around it

Year	Hostnames	Typical speed	$/GB of storage	A 4 GB film took
2001	29,254,370	128 kbps	$5	3.0 days
2003	40,912,332	1.5 Mbps	$1	6 hours 13 minutes
2004	51,611,646	2 Mbps	$1	4 hours 40 minutes

Between 2003 and 2020 the typical connection went from 1.5 Mbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 67, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $1 to $0.020 — a factor of 60. The 4 GB film that took 6 hours 13 minutes takes 6 minutes.

Common questions

What was the internet like in 2003?: MySpace, Skype, iTunes and WordPress all launch, and the social web starts. A typical home connection was 1.5 Mbps, there were about 40,912,332 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $1.
How long did it take to download a film in 2003?: A 4 GB film at 1.5 Mbps would have taken about 6 hours 13 minutes, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.
How many websites were there in 2003?: About 40,912,332 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 2001 Wikipedia launches in January, and nobody expects it to work.
The internet in 2004 Facebook launches at Harvard, and Gmail offers a gigabyte as an April Fool.
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