Phishing attacks reported annually (worldwide)

Global influencer-marketing spending and global phishing attacks, both climbing. Two industries built around persuasion at scale, in radically different moral registers, sharing the same upward path.

Global influencer marketing spending grew from about 1.7 billion dollars in 2016 to over 21 billion by 2024 as brands shifted ad budgets toward platform-native creators. Global phishing attacks reported annually grew sharply across the same window as bot-driven scams scaled and AI-assisted social engineering matured. Two completely unrelated lines sharing a window because the same seven years scaled both legitimate persuasion-at-scale and illegitimate persuasion-at-scale. The technology that powered one also powered the other.

Both industries scaled persuasion. The same tools, in two different intent registers.