In 2020, an unfathomable amount of digital activity is occurring at any given moment. As Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali details below, this ongoing explosion in activity is the aggregate output of 4.5 billion internet users today, a number that’s projected to increase even further in coming years.
This powerful visual from Domo helps capture what happens each minute in today’s hyper-connected internet era, and it’s actually the eighth edition produced since the year 2012.
What can we learn from the evolution of what happens in an internet minute?
How Times Have Changed
Over its relatively short history, the internet has been a catalyst for both the rise and demise of new companies and platforms.
By looking at which brands have appeared in the graphic in earlier years, we can roughly chart the prominence of certain tech segments, as well as observe brands with the most staying power.
As you can see above, platforms like Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare showed some promise, but eventually got omitted from the graphic as they dropped off in relevance.
Meanwhile, tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google have had impressive staying power, evolving to become some of the biggest companies in the world. In the process, they’ve caught up to longer-standing titans like Apple and Microsoft at the top of the food chain.
The New “New Thing”
Not surprisingly, much of the internet landscape looks different in 2020. Here are a few of the digital hot spots today.
Cash Transfers
Nearly $240,000 worth of transactions occur on Venmo per minute. This has served as a catalyst for parent company PayPal, which evolved along successfully with fintech trends. PayPal’s stock now trades at near all-time highs.
E-Commerce
Even before COVID-19 resulted in shuttered storefronts and surging online orders, e-commerce was a booming industry. It’s now estimated that $1 million is now spent per minute online. Amazon ships an astounding 6,659 packages every minute to keep up with this demand.
Collaboration Tools
In a predominantly remote-working environment, tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams host 208,333 and 52,083 users each minute respectively. Particularly in the pandemic era, it seems that this trend is here to stay.
Accelerated Turnover
The accelerated world we are in today means that many companies do not sustain a competitive advantage for as long. Social media companies have dwindled as observed above, and this is similarly reflected in the average lifespan of an S&P 500 company.
A typical company’s tenure on the S&P 500 is expected to shrink rapidly in the next few years:
- 1964: 33 years
- 2016: 24 years
- 2027E: 12 years
Companies are shaving anywhere between 15-20 years off those highs, with estimates of further declines. This metric symbolizes the rapid evolution of the business landscape.
What Lies Ahead
It’s seemingly easy to forget mankind is still very early in the developments when it comes to the internet. But in this short period, its rise to prominence and the broad digitization of the world has left us with a very eventful timeline.
If the last decade serves as a reference point, one can expect further and intensifying competition among tech companies. After all, the reward—winning in today’s digital economy—reaps much greater value.
All signs point to internet activity advancing to further heights, if not because of 5G and its associated breakthroughs, then perhaps due to the steady rise in people gaining internet access.
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And so it began, a new paradagm (sic)
This was the Stone Age compared to where we are now.
Blessing or curse? A series of technical innovations that enable the common man to learn at a global school, or a set of comfortable shackles that restrict while inducting a phony sense of liberty? Magnificent entertainment or the most effective propaganda ever?
Either/or, depends on how one uses it and tries to not let it use them.
exactly, Doc.
Anything in moderation, and nothing too extreme.
Some of the most clear minded thinking and spirit rejuvenation is experienced when I unplug for a few days.
Take a break.
Hit the outdoors for a day or three, and leave the gizmos behind, or at least turned off.
Back to nature heals and refreshes.
That, or losing yourself in a worthwhile project, involving thinking, planning, and working to achieve a goal.
Having access to the proper tools is a plus.
The changing colors of Autumn always seemed to inspire me personally, in this regard.
Cheers.
thx, chief nw
Mount Evans Road above Idaho Springs a year ago.
Yep,
The winds of change are blowing strong right now. Good vid Dawg.
I think of what has transpired and where we are at in my lifetime and I am floored. Then I think about going back just another 30 years to when my parents were born and I’m even more at awe. My Father lived until he was 9 years old in a 2 room shotgun shack on a sugar beet farm on the outskirts of Brighton, CO. No electricity, no running water indoors just a hand pump on the porch, and an outhouse. Eight people lived in that house. I imagine what must go through his mind when he looks at where we are today. Then I think back another almost 30 years to when my Grandfather was born on the Steppes of Russia just west of the Volga River in a little ethnic German colony known as Frank. My Great Grandfather had the foresight to bring his family to America and settled in Colorado. To think of what they did and had at their disposal then and what we have now blows the mind. When I see people today complain they’ve got it rough I laugh and think they have no idea. Muscledawg’s video says it right, “the winds of change” they are a blowing and at Category 5 speed.
DOC
I did the same thing as your Dad till 9. A 3 room tarpaper shack but we did have an electric light on each end of the main room hanging down from the ceiling that always leaked somewhere.
Those were the happiest days of my life. When we went into debt to move into a real house everything went to pieces.
We had to bring a glass of warm water out to the well in the morning to pour down the pipe and thaw the frost out of it to get that mornings water for the animals.
My Dad tells about the same think with the pump in winter. They kept a Pot of water on the coal stove at night so they could prime and thaw the hand pump in the morning. My Dad actually took me and my brother too see the old house when I was about 8 or 9 years old. It of course was abandoned then but, I’ll never forget that.
This chart is missing porn, which probably dwarfs everything else, and there’s a reason it’s “free.”
Excellent observation.