In a groundbreaking shift, Microsoft has dethroned Apple to emerge as the world’s most valuable company, boasting a market valuation of $2.875 trillion, slightly edging out Apple’s $2.871 trillion.

Reuters reports that the reshuffling of the tech hierarchy is primarily attributed to Apple’s lackluster performance in the early months of 2024, raising concerns about demand for its flagship product, the iPhone.

Microsoft’s stocks experienced a robust 1.6% surge, credited to its early leadership in the race to harness the potential of generative artificial intelligence (genAI), which garnered increased investor attention.

Analyst Gil Luria from D.A. Davidson pointed at the inevitability of Microsoft surpassing Apple, noting Microsoft’s rapid growth and its substantial gains from the genAI revolution.

Conversely, Apple faced a 3.3% decline in its stocks in January, compared to Microsoft’s 1.8% ascent, marking the first instance since 2021 that Apple’s valuation has dipped below Microsoft’s.

The slump in Apple’s shares is traced back to a series of rating downgrades, signaling worries about the sustainability of iPhone sales, particularly in the pivotal Chinese market. Redburn Atlantic expressed concern about China potentially hindering Apple’s performance, citing fierce competition from Huawei and heightened Sino-U.S. tensions affecting Apple’s market position.

“China could be a drag on performance over the coming years,” the brokerage said.

Adding to Apple’s challenges is regulatory scrutiny over its services business, which has been a recent bright spot in its financial reports. The potential antitrust implications of the lucrative deal designating Google as the default search engine on iOS have become a focal point for regulators.

Microsoft’s success is underscored by its aggressive rollout of genAI-powered tools throughout 2023, a strategic move resulting from its collaboration with OpenAI. This recent triumph echoes Microsoft’s sporadic overtaking of Apple as the most valuable company, which last happened in 2021 during disruptions caused by COVID-driven supply chain shortages.

Currently, Wall Street sentiment strongly favors Microsoft, with almost 90% of brokerages endorsing the stock and no “sell” ratings. In contrast, Apple faces a more subdued outlook with two “sell” ratings and only two-thirds of analysts advocating it as a “buy.”

Both Microsoft and Apple are currently deemed relatively expensive in terms of their price-to-earnings ratios. Apple’s forward PE stands at 28, well above its 10-year average of 19, while Microsoft trades at around 31 times forward earnings, exceeding its 10-year average of 24, according to LSEG data.

The surprising shift has created a fresh challenge for Apple, as the market watches whether the Cupertino giant will swiftly reclaim its top position in the fiercely competitive tech industry or if Microsoft will solidify its reign as the world’s most valuable company.

Imagine if, in the early days of the internet, HTTP had been a tradeable token — everyone would have had fiercely held opinions about the technical nuance of things like file transfers, hypertext linking, and client-server architecture. How would that have changed the way we access and share information online? Would it have created a more decentralized and democratic web, or a more exclusive and elitist one?

HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is the standard protocol for communicating between web browsers and servers. It defines how requests and responses are formatted and transmitted over the internet. HTTP is not owned by anyone, but rather follows a set of specifications developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization that creates web standards.

But what if HTTP had been designed differently? What if, instead of being a free and open protocol, it had been a scarce and valuable resource that could be bought and sold on a market? What if each HTTP request and response had a price attached to it, determined by supply and demand? What if web users had to pay for every web page they visited, and web developers had to pay for every web page they hosted?

One possible way to implement this idea is to use blockchain technology, which is a system of distributed ledger that records transactions in a secure and transparent way. Blockchain technology is the basis of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are digital tokens that can be exchanged for goods and services online. Blockchain technology can also be used to create smart contracts, which are self-executing agreements that enforce certain rules and conditions.

In this scenario, HTTP could be a tradeable token that runs on a blockchain network. Each HTTP token could represent a unit of bandwidth or data transfer and could be used to pay for web services. Web users would need to buy HTTP tokens from an exchange or a peer-to-peer network and use them to access web pages.

Web developers would need to buy HTTP tokens to host their web pages on servers and could earn HTTP tokens from their visitors. The price of HTTP tokens would fluctuate according to the supply and demand of web traffic.

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of such a system? Here are some possible pros and cons:

Pros:

It could incentivize web users to be more selective and efficient in their web browsing habits, reducing unnecessary or wasteful web traffic. It could incentivize web developers to create more high-quality and valuable web content, increasing the overall utility and diversity of the web. It could create a more competitive and innovative web market, where web services are priced according to their value and performance.

It could enable web users and developers to have more control and ownership over their web data and activities, enhancing their privacy and security.

Cons:

It could create a high barrier to entry for web users and developers, especially for those who cannot afford or access HTTP tokens. It could create a digital divide between those who have access to the web and those who do not, exacerbating social and economic inequalities. It could create a more fragmented and isolated web, where different web communities use different protocols or platforms that are incompatible or inaccessible to each other. It could create a more volatile and unpredictable web market, where web services are subject to price fluctuations and market manipulations.

Of course, these are just some speculative thoughts based on a hypothetical scenario. There is no guarantee that HTTP as a tradeable token would have these effects, or that it would even be feasible or desirable in reality. However, it is an interesting exercise to imagine how different the web could have been if one of its fundamental components had been designed differently.

Perhaps it can also inspire us to think about how we can improve the current state of the web, or how we can create alternative models of the web that are more aligned with our values and goals.