1. A method of improving traffic management in a computing network, comprising steps of: detecting a changed environmental condition comprising a changed capacity to transmit data over the network due to congestion or component malfunction on that network; determining at a currently-executing application, based on the changed environmental condition, whether the currently-executing application should modify a behavior of the currently-executing application, wherein said currently-executing application comprises settings defining which components of said network the currently-executing application should consider is determining whether to modify behavior; and in response to a positive determination to modify behavior of the currently-executing application, modifying, by the currently-executing application, the behavior of the currently-executing application, wherein the modification of the behavior of the currently-executing application changes an amount of data that the currently-executing application seeks to send or receive over the network specifically in response to the detection of the changed environmental condition comprising a changed capacity to transmit data over the network due to congestion or component malfunction on that network; wherein detecting said changed environmental condition comprises receiving messages from components of the network based on internal capability vectors kept by each such component that dynamically specify that component's current capabilities.