US population using the internet

As more Americans have gotten online, WeChat has gained more users in China, a correlation of 0.976 that connects US internet adoption to Chinese super-app adoption with the global connectivity confidence of a chart that treats both platforms as the same internet viewed from different continents. America goes online, China goes on WeChat, and both numbers climb because the same global telecommunications infrastructure serves both countries.

US internet usage grew from about 85 percent to over 95 percent. WeChat grew from about 400 million to over 1.3 billion users between 2013 and 2022. Both are adoption curves in the same global digital infrastructure: the same undersea cables, the same smartphone supply chain, and the same silicon wafer foundries serve both markets. Ten data points, both up.

Ten years of US internet and WeChat is a correlation between two populations going online on the same infrastructure during the same decade. The American opens Chrome, the Chinese opens WeChat, and both are counted by the same global internet that connects them without either platform being aware of the other.