Heh, a more dismal view of why metrics that lead revenue are being tracked with such fervor, it's so the internal stockholders can either purchase more, or file with the SEC to sell off in the required timeframe before it's too late.

I mean, internal metrics also let them change something. If it's able to predict earnings in a few months, surely changing whatever is driving those metrics has value.

trading on inside information does move the stock market price in the direction it should be moving and makes the market more rational and efficient so portfolio theory buyers and sellers of the stock make better decisions.

> Metrics that give insight on whether users are having a good experience can lead revenue metrics significantly.

Oh, yeah. If you are able to discover those metrics, there's a billion-sized market opportunity to apply them. You will certainly be able to get a share of those.

We have some partial proxies, that stop working almost as soon as you start to make decisions based on them, and a huge bunch of snake oil. But the metrics you are looking for do not actually exist.

Sure they do, they're just very product-specific and an unsexy slog for the reasons you're highlighting. It is definitely a valid optimization to not even try, and just stick to very granular trailing metrics. But that doesn't mean there is never any way to look at how people are using a product over time and draw valid conclusions that can be used as input into good decisions.

> way to look at how people are using a product over time and draw valid conclusions

Well, that exists. Metrics that summarize those conclusions is what don't exist.

Metrics are a different thing from information. You can discover if people like your product, it just takes effort and isn't accessible to people without any knowledge on the subject.

Let me give a concrete example. Say it's a subscription service. Say you track three metrics:

- Revenue. - Subscription renewal / cancellation by monthly cohort. - Signups.

Say the second metric shows that you have a meaningful subscription drop-off after 18 months. By comparing that metric with the signup metric, you might be able to successfully foresee a revenue drop-off months before it materializes in the revenue metric alone, buying valuable time to figure out what to do.

Tracking a revenue metric alone always runs the risk of surprising you in real time when it ticks down and you have no idea why.

Hum... That metric doesn't tell whether the users are having a good experience.

If that was your point, I misunderstood your comment. Yes, there are metrics that will help you predict problems. My comment wasn't about this.

Ah I see. Yep that other comment I made was uselessly hand-wavy.

The point I was trying to make, starting with my initial comment in the thread, is that there is a middle ground between "we're spending way too much time devising and implementing really fancy fine grained metrics" and "we only look at revenue".

My concrete example makes this point much better, and it seems like we're in agreement, so carry on :)