[jjj123]

There’s an important distinction to make: this tracking doesn’t necessarily lead to better products, it leads to better business metrics.

Sometimes a better product comes out of better business metrics, but other times they’re directly opposed.

[Google234]

This is not true. What if for example you want to make a change to the dictionary feature because you imagine that it’s not useful and should be less prominently accessible. How would you measure if this is a good idea or not without tracking its use? This has nothing to do with business and everything to do with making the product better.

[jjj123]

Sure, there’s an example where best case the user experience is improved and business metrics aren’t affected. But I assure you if that app has a decent analytics setup they’ll also be tracking business metrics, and if for some reason business metrics went down with that change past some acceptable threshold, that change won’t be launched.

Now if you look at opposite case, where a feature is worse for user experience but helps business metrics, that feature will definitely be launched. A small, mostly harmless example: Ever tried to hide twitter’s recommended accounts? It gives you the option to “see less often”, but curiously there’s no option to stop seeing the window forever. Why? Because clearly it benefits twitter’s business on average to keep showing these recommendations.

I’ve built enough dark patterns at my last job to know it always comes down to business metrics.

[choward]

Exactly. At the end of the day it's about profit and not necessarily a better product. Sometimes more profit means making a better product for the end user.