It's a positive for a nameless middle manager somewhere who can show their boss a graph with a line moving to the right and up with a title like "AI Adoption Across Platforms" and hit their bonus target.
I understand what you mean, but it does match MBA/mckinsey thinking very closely.
Make a metric a goal, work tirelessly towards that new metric.
Does it make the product better? Well, the product is already made- so it doesn’t make a difference.
It’s only software developers who think a product is never “done”- normal MBA thinking is “we have invested in R&D, now there is a product, how do we get as many users of our product as possible”.
You don't think the reason we have seemingly broken optimization is because poorly thought out metrics are being gamed?
That's all its been for the last few decades. Everyone is now "data driven" and "metrics oriented". That's a footgun - if people can game it, they will, and numbers don't say what people think they say.
But all the other delis are doing it as well. So is your supermarket. So is your farmer (somehow they figured out how to add salt to the veggies they sell at the farmer's market!)... Whaddya gonna do? Grow your own? THE SEEDS SHALL HAVE SALT TOO, has been decreed...
Then your social media & newsfeeds are buzzing about salted coffee, and your work has mandated salt in the coffee, insisting that it increases productivity, and if you’re not partaking you might fail your next performance review.
“In Q2 our P0 goal is to deliver Project Footgun. Your focus on delivering this important goal will put us in a good position to finally fund your favorite tech debt projects.”
Its now Q2, you worked your ass off on delivering Project Footgun, excitedly signing in the next morning to work on that tech debt to a message from your manager that the PMs didn't see value in the P1's and were transitioning to Project Footgun 2.0 The Shotgun
