I don't understand how so many are constantly getting this wrong. The Web 2.0 disaster wasn't fueled by browser wars nor by some corporate acquisitions. Those are red herrings. I was someone working inside a university IT department at the time. Other than torrenting, the majority of Web traffic was to Facebook.com The root cause of Web 2.0 growth is Facebook branching out from university into the general public. If you're frantically searching for a second driver, you can add the explosion of iPhone sales on top of this. That's it. Anything else is a minor feedback loop that was attempting to latch onto the rocket growth levels of new Facebook users.