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What does such a number mean without context?

Imagine a toy example: 2 bakers in a street. John and Jill. John has a heart attack and his bakery is closed for the week.

- John gets nothing that week, from his perspective you could say he lost a week of sales

- The people in the street lose Johns cakes that week, but most are ok with going to Jill, as they are close enough. 50% go to jill, and the other 50 decide to save the money.

- Jill gains 50% of johns customers for the week.

How would would you even assess the "global damage" in such an example for 1 street. Let alone the global economy.

The money is there to drive things, pulling it out from one perspective is like looking at one weight in a neural network.




Not only does Jill gain 50% of John's customers for the week, but let's say that 20% of those customers decide that they actually prefer Jill's goods and stay as customers of Jill even after John has re-opened.


Yes, but some of Jill's customers come at lunch and couldn't afford to wait in the longer lines. Those customers now go to John's having waited a few days to look for an alternative. Jill gets 20% of John's clientele, but John gets more [impatient] customers than ever!

There will probably be some additional flow of customers as people realise they're too lazy to walk to Jill's/John's, Jill's was only better when they were doing the extra trade (freshness), or that Jill's is back to being quicker service (and then you have a chaotic effect as more people drift back the wait time gets longer).

The potential complexities of such simple systems are fascinating.




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