• School grade is measure of our knowledge in a subject.

• SEO traffic is a measure of the usefulness of our content to others.

• Money is a measure of the usefulness of our work to others.

Unfortunately, they can be inaccurate reflections of our contributions. For example, we can memorize a subject without truly understanding it and still receive good grades. When these measures are widely accepted as authoritative, companies may recruit based on grades rather than actual knowledge, leading us to study for grades rather than for understanding. Similar issues occur with SEO and money. Money is meant to measure how useful our work is to others, but over time, it has become something people chase for its own sake. Inheritance and financial tricks allow people to collect wealth without necessarily contributing value, distorting what money is supposed to represent. But the alternatives (such as socialism) are terrible as well. Eventually, most of us end up chasing the measure instead of the outcomes, which leads to gaming the system.