OK, I should have said "if you're releasing log-scaled graphs of this type of data". There are times and audiences for which log scales are appropriate. This is not such a case.
The reason this graph scares me is that this is completely unprecedented territory. Extrapolations from previous data about how to behave, economically, aren't going to work here.
Yeah, exactly. I've seen graphs like this before, in systems where there is a significant, but finite, amount of internal ability to stabilize itself. The outwardly visible datum looks stable, with only minor corrections and fluctuations, because you can't see the system internally managing itself to keep up with the increasing deterioration. Then the system exhausts its stabilization (or error correction, or damage control) capability, and suddenly everything goes to hell in a handbasket before anyone has time to react, leaving everyone sitting around dazed and wondering WTF just happened.
no subject
Yeah, exactly. I've seen graphs like this before, in systems where there is a significant, but finite, amount of internal ability to stabilize itself. The outwardly visible datum looks stable, with only minor corrections and fluctuations, because you can't see the system internally managing itself to keep up with the increasing deterioration. Then the system exhausts its stabilization (or error correction, or damage control) capability, and suddenly everything goes to hell in a handbasket before anyone has time to react, leaving everyone sitting around dazed and wondering WTF just happened.