North Atlantic right whale population estimate

The North Atlantic right whale and the Chinese messaging app WeChat have, between 2013 and 2022, traveled in opposite directions with a grim synchrony (r = -0.959) that neither species asked for. One is an enormous mammal vanishing from the Atlantic; one is an enormous platform saturating the Sino-sphere. The ocean empties while the phone fills. This is not the kind of balance sheet one enjoys reading.

The North Atlantic right whale population has declined from about 460 individuals in 2013 to fewer than 340 by 2022, with ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements responsible for most deaths; WeChat's MAUs have grown from about 270 million to over 1.3 billion in the same window, saturating China's smartphone base and most of its diaspora. The connection, such as it is, is purely coincidental — a species declining because of physical collisions with industry, a platform expanding because of network effects in a massive market — but plotted against time they make a near-perfect inverted graph. The whale needs quiet water; the app needs loud users. Neither is finding what it needs from the other.

One species thins. One platform saturates. The ocean and the phone, both full and emptying.