The number learns to perform

A young woman in Hurghada crochets beach bags and sells them through her page. For the first months the number of people following her was a fair signal. It grew when a bag was good, when a customer showed it off, when a friend told a friend.

Then the number became the goal.

She started giveaways: follow, tag three friends, win a bag. She swapped mentions with other small pages. The count climbed faster than it ever had. Her sales did not move.

What changed was not her work. It was what the number was doing. Before, it was a reading taken from the outside, like a bathroom scale. Now it was being steered, and a steered number stops reporting on the world. It reports on the steering.

Economists and anthropologists noticed this long ago, in banking and in universities. Measure something to understand it, and it helps. Reward people for raising the measure, and they will raise it, often without raising the thing underneath.

It shows up everywhere. A shop rewarded on how many receipts it issues will split one basket into three. A pupil rewarded on marks will learn the exam, not the subject.

Counts of followers, likes and views are an extreme case, because so much effort, from so many people, goes into pushing them up. At that point they say very little about whether anyone cares. They mostly measure how good someone has become at making the number climb.

The useful question goes back behind the count. Who bought? Who came back? Who told someone without being asked?

Those are slower to read and harder to fake.

A number you are chasing has stopped telling you anything.