What was the internet like in 2012?

Gangnam Style passes a billion views and breaks YouTube's counter. A typical home connection was 15 Mbps, there were about 697,089,489 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $0.070.

How long did it take to download a film in 2012?

A 4 GB film at 15 Mbps would have taken about 37 minutes, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

How many websites were there in 2012?

About 697,089,489 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 2012

Gangnam Style passes a billion views and breaks YouTube's counter.

697,089,489 hostnames · Broadband at 15 Mbps. 4G arriving.

Gangnam Style became the first video to pass a billion views on YouTube and overflowed the 32-bit signed integer YouTube had been using for the view counter, which capped at 2,147,483,647. YouTube switched to 64-bit and wrote a blog post about it. Facebook paid a billion dollars for Instagram, a company with thirteen employees and no revenue, in a deal that was mocked at the time and looks like the bargain of the decade now.

The numbers

Websites: 697,089,489 hostnames responding to HTTP
Typical connection: 15 Mbps — Broadband at 15 Mbps. 4G arriving.
A gigabyte of storage cost: $0.070, in 2012 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 15 Mbps
A 3 MB song	2 seconds
A 5 MB photo	3 seconds
A 700 MB CD image	6 minutes
A 4 GB film	37 minutes
A 50 GB game	7 hours 46 minutes

What arrived in 2012

Facebook's acquisition of Instagram for a billion dollars, in April
Facebook's stock market listing, in May

Against the years around it

Year	Hostnames	Typical speed	$/GB of storage	A 4 GB film took
2010	206,956,723	10 Mbps	$0.090	56 minutes
2012	697,089,489	15 Mbps	$0.070	37 minutes
2013	672,985,183	20 Mbps	$0.050	28 minutes

Between 2012 and 2020 the typical connection went from 15 Mbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 7, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $0.070 to $0.020 — a factor of 4. The 4 GB film that took 37 minutes takes 6 minutes.

Common questions

What was the internet like in 2012?: Gangnam Style passes a billion views and breaks YouTube's counter. A typical home connection was 15 Mbps, there were about 697,089,489 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $0.070.
How long did it take to download a film in 2012?: A 4 GB film at 15 Mbps would have taken about 37 minutes, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.
How many websites were there in 2012?: About 697,089,489 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 2010 Instagram launches, and the phone camera becomes the point of the phone.
The internet in 2013 Snowden, and encryption stops being a niche concern.
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