Satoshi did predict just that, even before he launched the network (in 2008).

    “At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.”   – 2008. 
    “At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN.” – 2010.
    “The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don’t generate.” – 2010.