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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Am I the only one who is totally confused by the lower plot? How is the data distributed among the positive and negative y axis? Is the negative portion supposed to be negative annual revenue? Why are CDs then in the positive and negative at the same time. I desperately need more labeling or explanation please. It sure looks nice, but I'm completely at loss...
It's symmetrical. There is actually nothing negative shown in that graph. The graph could be flat at the bottom on the axis that it would change nothing. However, it looks like soundwaves.
The width is proportional to the revenue.
So the axis with the year isn't actually 0 pr something else? Its just how much revenue was made in total (2000s were the time with most revenue) and how much each media contributed in a funky way of displaying it?
It would have been less confusing to have vertical lines rather than an x axis however they wanted it to look like a soundwave. However even though I am an electronic musician who works with soundwaves I didn't notice the metaphor until reading the comment here.
Thanks for pointing that out. It is a bit like the distribution on a violin plot then. But it still is weird how the colors are distributed and albeit I think it does indeed look nice, I think this plot shouldn't be in this community...
This is an even more confusing answer!
I don't know how to but this more clearly. The distance between the top and the bottom of the coloured strip at any given year; the thickness; represents the annual revenue.
This is actually a pretty common format for representing the evolution of parts in a total, because you can clearly see the share, the combined revenue and the total revenue over the years (that's the area). It is just that this one has been made symmetrical because it is easier to follow and just more pretty.
There's no positive or negative, just share (width). It is done creatively but still accurately, it looks like the most dominant segment takes the center allowing you to easily spot which was the most popular at what year.