There are plenty of places where "small success" still exists, usually in the form of tools that solve a problem for a specific trade/industry/etc. Though you w

There are plenty of places where "small success" still exists, usually in the form of tools that solve a problem for a specific trade/industry/etc. Though you won't see these small successes on HN. As a society we need a way to determine where we invest resources. Some of those metrics you mentioned, though not perfect, are proxies for evaluating whether or not we should be investing more in certain tech. Otherwise, how would we determine where we should spend our limited resources?