Netflix And YouTube Make Up Majority Of US Internet Traffic, New Report Shows

Peer-to-peer file sharing has declined and Amazon and Hulu struggle to win receding American attention spans

Netflix and YouTube now account for more than half of downstream internet traffic in North America, according to a report released on Monday.

This online dominance marks the first time the two video streaming sites surpassed the 50% mark and shows a significant decline in the use of peer-to-peer services.

Meanwhile, BitTorrent, the protocol used for peer-to-peer file sharing, is now responsible for 7.4% of daily internet traffic in North America – a 31% drop from five years ago – according to the traffic report by broadband service company Sandvine.

Netflix accounted for 31.6% of downstream traffic on fixed networks in September during "primetime" internet hours – 9pm to 12am. This is a slight drop from May 2013, when Netflix posted a 32.25% share in downstream traffic.