Technology
A Data-Driven Look At Dark Web Marketplaces
View a high resolution version of this graphic.
A Data-Driven Look At Dark Web Marketplaces
View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.
In 2018, ex-Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, made headlines after predicting the internet would eventually split into two halves – one dominated by China and the other by the United States.
While that vision of the future may come to pass, the internet already has a noteworthy division (coincidentally related to Google): indexed and non-indexed. The indexed internet is what we’re all familiar with, everything from gif-laden Geocities websites to the webpage you’re reading this on.
Parts of the non-indexed portion of the internet may be familiar as well. This includes services like online banking, or content behind paywalls or sign-in forms. Most of this part of the internet – referred to as the Deep Web – is non-indexed.
Dipping Below the Surface
Beyond easily accessible areas of the internet, lies the Dark Web, which is primarily accessed using specific software such as Tor or I2P. Practically speaking, connection requests via TOR are re-routed several times before reaching their destination. This allows people to maintain their anonymity while accessing dark web content.
The Dark Web lives in the public consciousness as a digital Wild West; a place where every vice can be explored and procured within the vacuum of lawlessness. There’s truth to the reputation, as dark net markets sell everything from illegal drugs to databases of stolen personal information. Today’s graphic, via Europe’s drug monitoring organization, EMCDDA, gives a detailed overview of dark web marketplaces going all the back to 2010.
One of the first and most well known of these markets was The Silk Road, which opened at the beginning of 2011. Around the time of its first anniversary, the market reached an estimated $22 million in annual sales.
The Short Shelf Life of Markets
Not surprisingly, governments are not thrilled at the idea of unregulated (and untaxed) markets operating in the dark web. Law enforcement and three-letter agencies have thrown considerable efforts into shutting them down, though with mixed results.
A raid on The Silk Road in 2013 did end the reign of the popular marketplace, but it had the effect of spawning dozens of new markets to help fill the void. That said, only a few end up lasting more than a year and the average lifespan of a dark web market is just eight months.
Some markets close down, or were simply a scam to begin with, but larger markets tend to fall victim to raids by law enforcement. High profile examples include Operation Onymous (2014), and Operations Bayonet and GraveSec (2017), which shut down the popular markets AlphaBay and Hansa. To give an idea of scale, Hansa reportedly offered more than 24,000 drug product listings at its height.
According to EMCDDA’s report, there are currently nine active markets. If history is any guide though, many of them will be gone by year’s end.
While giants like Google and Amazon may rule the indexed web, the commercial landscape below the surface is shifting constantly.
Update: This article has been revised to better reflect the source of the data.
Technology
How Big Tech Revenue and Profit Breaks Down, by Company
How do the big tech giants make their money? This series of graphics shows a breakdown of big tech revenue, using Q2 2022 income statements.
Creator Program
In the media and public discourse, companies like Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft are often lumped together into the same “Big Tech” category. After all, they constitute the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
And because of this, it’s easy to assume they’re in direct competition with each other, fiercely battling for a bigger piece of the “Big Tech” pie. But while there is certainly competition between the world’s tech giants, it’s a lot less drastic than you might imagine.
This is apparent when you look into their various revenue streams, and this series of graphics by Truman Du provides a revenue breakdown of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.
How Big Tech Companies Generate Revenue
So how does each big tech firm make money? Let’s explore using data from each company’s June 2022 quarterly income statements.
Alphabet
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In Q2 2022, about 72% of Alphabet’s revenue came from search advertising. This makes sense considering Google and YouTube get a lot of eyeballs. Google dominates the search market—about 90% of all internet searches are done on Google platforms.
Amazon
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon’s biggest revenue driver is e-commerce. However, as the graphic above shows, the costs of e-commerce are so steep, that it actually reported a net loss in Q2 2022.
As it often is, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the company’s main profit-earner this quarter.
Apple
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Apple’s biggest revenue driver is consumer electronics sales, particularly from the iPhone which accounts for nearly half of overall revenue. iPhones are particularly popular in the U.S., where they make up around 50% of smartphone sales across the country.
Besides devices, services like Apple Music, Apple Pay, and Apple TV+ also generate revenue for the company. But in Q2 2022, Apple’s services branch accounted for only 24% of the company’s overall revenue.
Microsoft
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Microsoft has a fairly even split between its various revenue sources, but similarly to Amazon its biggest revenue driver is its cloud services platform, Azure.
After AWS, Azure is the second largest cloud server in the world, capturing 21% of the global cloud infrastructure market.
Technology
Animation: The Most Popular Websites by Web Traffic (1993-2022)
This video shows the evolution of the internet, highlighting the most popular websites from 1993 until 2022.
The Most Popular Websites Since 1993
Over the last three decades, the internet has grown at a mind-bending pace.
In 1993, there were fewer than 200 websites available on the World Wide Web. Fast forward to 2022, and that figure has grown to 2 billion.
This animated graphic by James Eagle provides a historical look at the evolution of the internet, showing the most popular websites over the years from 1993 to 2022.
The 90s to Early 2000s: Dial-Up Internet
It was possible to go on the proto-internet as early as the 1970s, but the more user-centric and widely accessible version we think of today didn’t really materialize until the early 1990s using dial-up modems.
Dial-up gave users access to the web through a modem that was connected to an active telephone line. There were several different portals in the 1990s for internet use, such as Prodigy and CompuServe, but AOL quickly became the most popular.
AOL held its top spot as the most visited website for nearly a decade. By June 2000, the online portal was getting over 400 million monthly visits. For context, there were about 413 million internet users around the world at that time.
| Rank | Website | Monthly Visits (May 2000) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | AOL | 400,891,812 |
| 2 | Yahoo | 387,573,587 |
| 3 | MSN | 354,239,803 |
| 4 | eBay | 116,101,785 |
| 5 | Lycos | 116,064,930 |
But when broadband internet hit the market and made dial-up obsolete, AOL lost its footing, and a new website took the top spot—Yahoo.
The Mid 2000s: Yahoo vs. Google
Founded in 1994, Yahoo started off as a web directory that was originally called “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.”
When the company started to pick up steam, its name changed to Yahoo, which became a backronym that stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”
Yahoo grew fast and by the early 2000s, it became the most popular website on the internet. It held its top spot for several years—by April 2004, Yahoo was receiving 5.6 billion monthly visits.
| Rank | Website | Monthly Visits (April 2004) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yahoo | 5,658,032,268 |
| 2 | MSN | 1,838,700,057 |
| 3 | 1,318,276,780 | |
| 4 | AOL | 905,009,947 |
| 5 | eBay | 805,474,705 |
But Google was close on its heels. Founded in 1998, Google started out as a simpler and more efficient search engine, and the website quickly gained traction.
Funny enough, Google was actually Yahoo’s default search engine in the early 2000s until Yahoo dropped Google so it could use its own search engine technology in 2004.
For the next few years, Google and Yahoo competed fiercely, and both names took turns at the top of the most popular websites list. Then, in the 2010s, Yahoo’s trajectory started to head south after a series of missed opportunities and unsuccessful moves.
This cemented Google’s place at the top, and the website is still the most popular website as of January 2022.
The Late 2000s, Early 2010s: Social Media Enters the Chat
While Google has held its spot at the top for nearly two decades, it’s worth highlighting the emergence of social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
YouTube and Facebook certainly weren’t the first social media platforms to gain traction. MySpace had a successful run back in 2007—at one point, it was the third most popular website on the World Wide Web.
| Rank | Website | Monthly Visits (Jan 2007) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7,349,521,929 | |
| 2 | Yahoo | 5,169,762,311 |
| 3 | MySpace | 1,276,515,128 |
| 4 | MSN | 1,259,467,102 |
| 5 | eBay | 957,928,554 |
But YouTube and Facebook marked a new era for social media platforms, partly because of their impeccable timing. Both platforms entered the scene around the same time that smartphone innovations were turning the mobile phone industry on its head. The iPhone’s design, and the introduction of the App store in 2008, made it easier than ever to access the internet via your mobile device.
As of January 2022, YouTube and Facebook are still the second and third most visited websites on the internet.
The 2020s: Google is Now Synonymous With the Internet
Google is the leading search engine by far, making up about 90% of all web, mobile, and in-app searches.
What will the most popular websites be in a few years? Will Google continue to hold the top spot? There are no signs of the internet giant slowing down anytime soon, but if history has taught us anything, it’s that things change. And no one should get too comfortable at the top.
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