Is it just me, or just central Texas, but I have a feeling that Internet is slowing down. I work on various connections, from 1Mbit/sec to 9Mbit/sec and I am starting to notice that most web sites are getting slower.

When I got my first broadband in 2000, most sites would load instantly or nearly instantly. These days everything (except maybe google.com) takes 3-5 seconds to show up, regardless of my connection speed. "Flat" download speeds, i.e those of large files', remain fast though.

Has anyone else noticed this? If so, how would you explain it? Generally slower networks because of increased loads (video, torrents) or ISPs silently introducing delays, or web sites running out of servers?

What kind of "cloud computing" are we talking about if we're spending more and more time in front of loading... banners? Even gmail, from a God of Scaling, has slowed down for me and isn't getting any better.

Add to that increasing number of ads, heavy flash content, and browsers that quickly swallow hundreds of megabytes of RAM and routinely block UI thread, and user experience is slowly drifting downhill.

Again, is it just me?