Hacker News Reader

> Here's a graph of total freight volume (a proxy for the real physical economy)

In 2008, people and businesses were still buying new computers every year or two, printing everything on paper, buying physical media. I don't know anyone that does this anymore. I don't think that is a good proxy.

View on HN

In the US there was a slight drop around that time, but not close to 25% in the eu. If it was due to businesses buying less physical media wouldn't it be sth seen in the US data in some year too?

https://www.bts.gov/us-tonne-kilometers-freight

(a bit easier in table form as the graph does not aggregate accross all means of transport).

I would note that the population increase 2008-present in the EU (340M to 350M) is much lower than the US (305M to 345M), which could account for a rather significant difference too. I don't think either of these is a "smoking gun" but they both seem pretty significant confounding factors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com