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Why isn’t the bottom of the graph flat?

I can see how at any particular year the revenue from each source is represented by its color in the vertical slice, but what is the significance of the baseline going up and down over time?

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The vertical is total revenue for the year, centered around the axis. More emotional than a flat bottom edge, less info, less wasted space on the page.

The bands appear to be stacked older-format-lower.

It’s visually interesting, but without a vertical scale I’m immediately suspicious.

it is vertically symmetrical. it just doesn't look like it is because the horizontal year axis is in the wrong place.

i am happy to say i never spent a penny on a ring tone.

I am sad to say I definitely did, that said I feel like it was a rite of passage for a Motorola Razr owner

But it’s not vertically symmetrical? Look at paid streaming. Definitely not symmetrical.

I think the totals are--or at least they're close. But it's just sort of a weird way to do a visualization as opposed to just zero-basing the Y-axis.

Gotcha. Yeah, the totals are, but it makes it very hard to compare different categories. Grr.

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