Global data created per yearUS pet food total market sales
As global data creation has exploded, US pet food sales have grown, the sequel to the earlier global-data/dog-treats correlation, now expanded to the entire pet food market. The zettabytes accumulate, the kibble ships, and both trends measure the same digital economy that generates data with every transaction—including every online pet food purchase, which is itself a few kilobytes of the zettabyte total.
Both took their steepest jump in 2020 because of the same lockdown calculus. An entire workforce went online, pushing global data creation to new heights, and the same households adopted pets at record rates, sending pet-food sales through the roof. Two sides of the same spring — one uploaded, the other adopted.
Eight years of data and pet food is a correlation where the transactions that generate one metric are counted in the other. The food is ordered online, the order generates data, and the chart records both without noting the overlap. The cloud stores the receipt. The dog eats the product. The zettabyte includes both.
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