New car sales and streaming subscriptions, marching upward in step for sixteen years. The car is not subscribing to anything yet. The Netflix account is not on a payment plan with a dealership. The numbers are pleased to keep their own counsel.
Streaming service subscriptions ballooned from a few million Netflix households in 2007 to well over a billion subscriptions worldwide by 2022 as Netflix, Prime, Disney+, and successors stacked on top of each other. New car sales recovered from the 2008-2010 trough and climbed back toward pre-crash levels in the same span, with electric vehicles entering as a meaningful share at the end. Both lines reflect the same recovering consumer economy of the 2010s, with each industry expanding into a category that didn't really exist in its current form a decade earlier.
The 2010s sold us a car and a subscription. We bought both. Most decades end up with that kind of receipt.
As an Amazon Associate, getspurious.com earns from qualifying purchases. Learn more.
Want to learn more about why correlations like “Streaming service subscriptions” vs “New car sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
