alt Hacker NewsA metric other than profitability seems like a terrible target for private research which (outside of a charity or cause-driven org) needs to justify its expenses.
In the US alone, we have dozens of grants, programs, and funding sources for things like orphan/rare diseases.
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johanvts • today at 7:22 AM
Profitability works because it is/was a good proxy for utility. This breaks as wealth becomes unevenly distributed.
> A metric other than profitability ...
* Quality of life improvement for x people?
* x people cured of [SOME DISEASE]?
(etc)
Those seem like pretty good ideas of the kind of targets we should have. But as you mention, those seem to only be considered for cause driven places or charities.