Julie Zhuo, Product design VP at Facebook:
Being able to measure stuff gives you insight into what people are doing within your product. Unless you like living under a rock, having more information is a good thing. Sure, you need to be able to sort through what information is important and what isn’t, but arguing that the whole concept of having more information is bad is not really a defensible position. Metrics is not the villain.
Information is good, it’s what you do with it.
Sorta. Information is only good if you can put yourself under sufficient restrictions to control what is done with it forever.
The real skill is being able to say “They’re doing X… why? What does that mean for future product direction?” The way to answer this? Make assumptions, test them. See what people do. Refine. Repeat.
But the concept of “more information is good” isn’t really a defensible position either. As Dalrymple says, it’s what you do with it. And the “more information” path often intertwines with the “invasion of privacy” and “compromise of security” paths, so that’s the one that needs to be scrutinized the hardest.
Typical Facebook propaganda. Not allowing them to have more data that is none of their business is a very reasonable, and defensible position.