Spotify Killed The Ferret
US Pet Ferret Population vs Spotify Monthly Active Users
As Spotify users surged, US ferret ownership cratered. The ferret used to be the apartment's audio entertainment. Spotify Premium killed the chittering star.
“Wrapped killed an entire species' relevance. The ferret simply could not compete with personalized playlists.”
— Dr. Wesley Moustela, Mustelid Musicologist
Why this correlation is stupid
The numbers above are real. Public data on US Pet Ferret Population and Spotify Monthly Active Users happens to move inversely closely enough to produce r ≈ 97% (negative) — a value high enough that, in a less skeptical world, someone would file a Substack post about it. Here, it earns a chart and a chuckle.
Statisticians call this a spurious correlation: two trends that share a shape without sharing a cause. With enough variables tracked over enough years, you can find pairings like this one between almost any two phenomena. Confounding factors, common drivers (population growth, smartphone adoption, the unstoppable march of time), or pure chance can all make graphs hold hands.
Source data is drawn from public datasets. We do not endorse any causal claim — only the comedic one.
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