US population using the internet

American Mavericks growing in count and American internet penetration approaching saturation. The kid named for breakaway optimism is, of course, online. So is everyone else. The graph is, gently, observing that both lines plateau at known places.

Maverick climbed Social Security baby-name charts steadily across this window, lifted further by Top Gun: Maverick (2022). US internet penetration grew from about 70 percent in 2005 to over 92 percent by 2022 as broadband and smartphones reached the last households. Two completely unrelated trajectories sharing a window because the same eighteen years lifted both a cultural name fashion and a digital-infrastructure rollout. Different markets, same generation.

A generation came online and named for breakaway. Two unrelated decisions of the same era.