A look at the historical growth of the U.S. internet sector

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the internet sector. The paper begins by introducing key concepts and definitions, particularly around technology, the internet, and the digital economy. It then provides a look on the industry’s economic size and performance over time using two unique datasets. The estimates illustrate the industry’s growth in key economic metrics over the past 5–15 years and also suggest some potential nuances, such as revenue seasonality. The paper contributes to the literature by being the first research, to the extent of the authors’ knowledge, to examine time series trends for the sector, rather than individual year snapshots.