‘Wildly disappointing’: Tech exec warns web innovation is stagnating, compares it to space exploration post-1970s

If we were to fall asleep today and not wake up for another 35 years, we'd wake up feeling underwhelmed at the pace of innovation.

That's according to Robert Blumofe, chief technology officer of web security firm Akamai, who thinks the world may be "wildly disappointed" by progress made on the web in the next three decades.

Akamai, a content delivery network, helps internet users access web content fast.

Tuesday marked 35 years to the day since renowned computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for what would eventually be known as the "World Wide Web."

But Blumofe, who noted he's still a believer in the web and modern technology, cautioned we could be in for stagnation.

"The next 35 years might be wildly disappointing," Blumofe told CNBC in an interview last week. "I take a bit of a contrarian view on this."

Blumofe compared the current state of the web today to the aerospace industry in the 1960s. Back then, he said, there was huge innovation with the arrival of the Boeing 747 and the first moon landing.

Today, aerospace innovation has stalled, he added.

"All that was in the 60s and 70s," Blumofe noted. "If someone had gone asleep in 1975 and then woke up and looked at aerospace today they would be wildly disappointed."

"The planes aren't any bigger. They're not any faster," he said.

Blumofe said it's entirely possible the world is heading in that same direction with telecommunications.

"We may have exhausted the steep innovation curve," he said. "That curve may have passed us by. We may be heading for a plateau."

"Moore's law is over," Blumofe added, referring to the theory that the number of components on a single chip doubles every two years at minimal cost.

Blumofe said much of the world now has connectivity,