Numbers and stats

I’m not going to shock you if I say that analytics and numbers are everywhere on the web these days. We live at a time where everything is and must be quantifiable. It’s as if the value of what you create is based on the number of clicks, likes, views, claps, hearts or poop emojis you gain. And to me, all this, is extremely sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to be as guilty as everyone else. I was happy to reach a thousand followers on a stupid Twitter profile, “proud” of the numbers of followers I had on my Tumblr blog and excited by the number of page views in my Google Analytics dashboard. But then I realized that all this is absolutely meaningless. Not in absolute terms obviously. There are plenty of situations where you need numbers to “quantify” (justify?) the quality or the value of a project. But are totally useless in the context of side projects. If you’re building something because it’s your passion, stats are not important.

Right now I have no idea how many people read this blog, I have no idea how many people use my gallery daily or how many people follow me on twitter. And frankly I don’t care.