Streaming service subscriptionsUS pizza restaurant spending
From 2007 to 2022, Americans added streaming subscriptions and pizza restaurant spending in near-perfect lockstep, achieving a correlation of 0.97 that feels less like a discovery and more like a lifestyle profile. The data suggests that the ideal American evening involves a screen, a pie, and no plans to leave the house. Economists call this 'complementary goods.' The rest of us call it Tuesday.
Streaming service subscriptions grew from negligible levels in 2007 to over 300 million US subscriptions across platforms by 2022, transforming home entertainment. Pizza restaurant spending, including delivery, grew from roughly $36 billion in 2007 to over $46 billion by 2022, with delivery and carryout driving much of the growth. Both trends accelerated during the 2020 pandemic and reflect the broader shift toward home-based consumption of food and entertainment. Pizza is among the highest-delivery-rate restaurant categories, making it a natural beneficiary of stay-at-home culture.
Some correlations are spurious; some are just descriptions of the same evening. Whether the pizza follows the streaming or the streaming follows the pizza is a question no dataset can resolve, only lived experience.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Streaming service subscriptions” vs “US pizza restaurant spending” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
