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Why do people spend time on useless graphs for something that could be explained clearly in 3-4 sentences?

Because it's blog. He's not writing for the Times.

Sometimes, pictures show information better than words.

Also, infographics get embedded, which still sends traffic your way...

Yeah, but these pictures don't show the information that well. You can't see the numbers side by side -- you have to click between and have an animation run. In addition, they use a two-dimensional representation for one-dimensional data, which is bad because people are bad at judging the sizes of areas.

It's not about making charts, it's about making bad charts.

The writer does not seem to be a paid journalist and they helpfully provide the raw data.

Perhaps someone will make a better chart and post it.

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