I can't find the podcast but, IIRC, Bryan Cantrill said that at one point VCs would look at GitHub stars to gauge interest in various projects in one period of time. Apparently this might have been a factor Docker's rounds.

I think this was Oxide and Friends show, but I'm unsure.

Makes sense on its face, popular projects = potential money. Whether that's a good signal or not is a different discussion. I even think on the episode they mention how misguided this was, people using something might not mean there is potential for revenue if the people are using it solely because it is free and licensed appropriately.

People are just looking for patterns anywhere to justify whatever they want. I've seen npmtrends used to justify adopting certain libraries. Really makes you wonder.