Hard to make a blanket statement about analytics being 'good' or 'bad'. They are there as one of many tools to provide a compass and let you know whether you're headed in the right direction.
I think there's a bit of nuance here between an artist's approach versus that of a product designer, for instance. Artists seek to express an idea, feeling, or concept. Analytics, which (in the case of Youtube) optimise for a certain outcome, can easily befuddle. Designers seek to solve a problem. Analytics can help shed light on whether the problem has been solved.
Hi I wrote this post! You're right - that's what I was getting at in the post :)
I've seen lots of people say analytics are "bad" recently, and that's what inspired this post (as well as starting to write an analytics-free blog).
I think it's especially twisted when analytics companies (like google) try to manipulate me into changing from an "artist analytics user" into a "engagement engineer analytics user". That's bad.
I think there's a bit of nuance here between an artist's approach versus that of a product designer, for instance. Artists seek to express an idea, feeling, or concept. Analytics, which (in the case of Youtube) optimise for a certain outcome, can easily befuddle. Designers seek to solve a problem. Analytics can help shed light on whether the problem has been solved.