The most cited and most butchered statistical law

The past week, you are unable to avoid, if you read the business news, mention of the "law of large numbers". We are led to believe that tech giants like Apple and Amazon are suffering from this statistical law. For example:

Apple: Newest Victim of the Law of Large Numbers (CNet)

New York Times Paywall Growth Slows (Columbia Journalism Review): "Much of this is due to the law of large numbers"

Amazon Growth Slows While Profit Margin Expands (Yahoo News/Reuters): "The law of large numbers is affecting Amazon, too."

Is WebRTC a Threat to Skype? (UC Strategies): "The law of large numbers provides protection [to Skype against the threat of a new technology]."

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This is time to re-read my 2010 entry, called "The Many Laws of Large Numbers" (link). Also Chapter 3 of Numbers Rule Your World covers disaster insurance, and Chapter 5 covers lotteries, both of which are proper applications of the statistical Law of Large Numbers.