US, Asia, Europe Ceding Web Dominance

An anonymous reader writes "A new study shows that presence of the US, Asia, and Western European countries on the web is strongly declining. Newly internet-empowered countries are booming; many geographical regions are showing exponential growth, including Eastern Europe and South America. Chris Harrison explains: 'Countries that have never been able to place a website in the top 500 are now pushing dozens of established websites out of this prestigious list. This trend is both recent (within the last two years) and accelerating. Interestingly, Asia is seeing it's presence eroded the fastest, especially China.'"

Africa?

[bhouston]

I noticed in Chris Harrison's website a lot of talk of "the rest of the world enters front and center stage" but while he discussed North America, Europe, Asia and South America, he didn't mention Africa at all. Any word on what's up with Africa and internet usage, let alone the most popular domains? I know little about this subject, but am curious now.

Re:Africa?

[imemyself]

That might be the case in central Africa, but I would think that it might be a little different in more industrialized nations like Egypt and South Africa. I've heard of bloggers in Egypt several times (one that got arrested IIRC), so I'm assuming that the Internet is atleast somewhat common there.

Re:Africa?

[alienmole]

Wow, you're sure projecting a whole lot of stuff there. I didn't say anything about "smarter", "less talented", "more talented", or "non-talent" on either side. Nor did I say "overpriced". It's just a simple economic fact that a U.S. dollar goes a hell of a lot further in South Africa than it does in the U.S. As it happens, I'm originally South African myself, I just happen to be living in the U.S. -- to exploit rich customers, you might say. So I have some experience of both sides.

The whole point of "exploiting cheap talent" is the assumption that the talent in question is at least roughly of equal quality. Whether it's a bit better or worse isn't important, compared to the huge freaking inequality in costs. You can list as many other possible factors as you like, but cheaper labor is by far the primary one, because of the simple fact that in software development, labor is by far the biggest single cost. I'm a software developer, and I do work for companies that also do outsourcing of their development to various places, and my experience in talking to the managers involved is that it's all about cost, which stands to reason if you have any idea of the relative costs involved.

This is a world economy afterall; are you belly-aching because our asses are getting handed to us?

No bellyaching here, I love the fact that it's a world economy. I have no idea whose asses you're talking about -- I'll guess "American programmers", but in that case you've maybe mistaken me for Lou Dobbs.