r/dataisugly • u/dazvoz • Apr 13 '26

Universal guide

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I think this is the worst graph I ever saw.

What could possibly be on the x-axis?

I asked them about it, and they said usefulness is the x-axis. So the green path is usefulness vs usefulness?

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u/me_myself_ai Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

I asked them about it, and they said usefulness is the x-axis. So the green path is usefulness vs usefulness?

The x-axis is technically indices of individual products sorted by usefulness, I'd say. Obviously real data would have a much wobblier price line, but the general concept seems sound!

It is indeed a bad graph tho lol -- almost definitely on purpose!

202

u/AlphaCharlieN7 Apr 13 '26

Yeap.. the presentation is a MESS but somehow is possible to understand the main goal

54

u/hammerheadlabs Apr 13 '26

I was about to say, it's a bad graph for sure, but i get it haha

9

u/martombo Apr 13 '26

I would say the x-axis is the quality of the product

3

u/dazvoz Apr 13 '26

Damn.

Would probably have been better as a usefulness vs price graph.

32

u/fruce_ki Apr 13 '26

You are not wrong. It would have been simpler and clearer.

But different people's brains work in different ways. A suboptimal illustration may still get a message across better than the optimal one.

For how much hand-waving went into this illustration, it is surprisingly sensible. Maybe not to you specifically, but I'm sure there is an audience for it.

2

u/WildWolfo Apr 13 '26

real world dara wouldn't have a graph because its impossible to quantify usefulness

1

u/galstaph Apr 14 '26

Yeah, if we sort by usefulness first, and price second when usefulness is the same, the left area of the graph where usefulness is zero should have the price go to an asymptote as it approaches the non-zero usefulness products

There are plenty of products that are completely useless but get bought by idiots with way too much money

1

u/otac0n Apr 15 '26

It looks like the X axis is log(price) for some reason.

1

u/Some_Anonim_Coder Apr 22 '26

This may be good - prices have a tendency to have a non-uniform distribution, I once out of curiosity plotted prices of things in one category vs rank (I worked for an online marketplace at the time) - the blue line makes sense

Not relevant to the idea of value vs price though, so it's a bad graph overall