This is a graph from a Dutch news article about changes in revenue (blue) and sales volume (red) in the Dutch retail industry. Above 0 means it went up, below 0 means it went down, compared to the previous year. The massive dip in volume are the years in which there were COVID measures.

But I want to draw your attention to the "revenue" line. Notice how it doesn't meaningfully dip compared to previous years, and revenues continued to climb, *even though* the sales volume decreased?

Next time someone tells you that ever-increasing consumerism is necessary to keep the economy running, remember this graph.

(The CBS, which is the data source for this graph, is the Dutch governmental statistics agency.)