Global data created per year

As humanity has generated data in quantities that would make a librarian weep—zettabytes upon zettabytes of selfies, transactions, sensor readings, and arguments about whether a hot dog is a sandwich—the price of a pint in Britain has risen with quiet, inflationary determination. Seven data points is all it takes to establish this relationship, which is either a commentary on the information economy or a very expensive way to explain why your pub bill keeps going up. The universe generates data, and Britain generates excuses to drink.

Global data creation surged from about 15 zettabytes in 2015 to over 120 zettabytes by 2023, driven by the proliferation of connected devices, cloud computing, and the general human compulsion to record everything. UK pint prices rose from £3.30 to over £4.80 during the same period, pushed upward by ingredient costs, energy bills, staff wages, and the slow economic squeeze that Brexit and successive crises applied to the hospitality sector. Both trends are, at their core, measures of inflation and complexity: the digital economy produces more data as it grows, and the physical economy charges more for beer as its costs rise. They are both ticking clocks, counting different things but keeping the same time.

Seven years of data growth and beer prices is a correlation that feels like it should contain a lesson about the modern condition, and perhaps it does: everything is getting simultaneously more abundant and more expensive, which is exactly the kind of paradox that makes you want a pint. The data does not explain the beer. The beer does not explain the data. Both just keep going up.