We’ve All Learned to Game It

Somewhere along the way, we stopped doing things because they mattered and started doing them because they scored.

We didn’t mean to. It just… happened.
Blame it on the systems.

We built platforms, certifications, algorithms, metrics, and audits to measure success. And to be fair, we had to. Systems can’t function without measurement. But somewhere along the way, we stopped asking: are we measuring the right things? What’s “proper” measurement in a world where what’s easy to count often overrides what’s important to nurture?

When you pick the wrong metric, you don’t just measure poorly-you encourage the wrong outcome. Naturally, the human brain [equal parts brilliant and lazy] said, “Cool, what’s the minimum I need to do to pass?” And so began the age of optimized mediocrity.

“We don’t chase meaning anymore-we chase metrics.”

Just Enough to Win

LinkedIn? Put the link in comments.
YouTube? Like, share, subscribe – ritualistically, like a digital namaskar to the algorithm gods.
Instagram? It was likes, then comments, now it’s saves.
Medium? Add just enough SEO and a numbered list to get picked by the algorithm.
Twitter (sorry, X)? Be polarizing enough to spike engagement, then thread it out with emojis.

Your followers don’t have to care. They just have to engage.

It’s not just creators. It’s us.

A grassroots nonprofit has to constantly churn out viral, high-engagement content just to ensure their real cause work sees the light of day. The effort to do the thing you care about now requires an even bigger effort to maintain attention so you can do the thing you care about. That’s exhausting.

It’s the same pattern elsewhere. In the old days, television channels curated what viewers watched. Programming was limited, airtime was scarce, and decisions were made on behalf of the audience-often with a sense of editorial responsibility. Now, content is engineered for what people will watch more, not necessarily what they should or need to see. It’s still the directors and producers at the helm : but they’re flying by engagement metrics, not values. The result? Viral, sticky, endlessly watchable content that sometimes feels like rainbow puke. Spectacle over substance. That trade-off? The price of reach.
The effort to do the thing you care about now requires an even bigger effort to maintain attention so you can do the thing you care about. That’s exhausting.

“When visibility becomes the goal, authenticity becomes a cost.”

Certifications: The Great Pretend

Once upon a time, getting certified meant you knew something.
Now? It just means you managed to survive an exam-and possibly a 30-day prep sprint guided by someone selling a “pass-guaranteed” course.

Why do we do it?
Because companies ask for it.

So people start optimizing for exam clearance, not actual learning.
The goal becomes: clear the exam with minimum pain.
Not understand the subject with lasting depth.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same pattern across the board.

And to be clear-this isn’t a dismissal of people who rely on certifications as their foot in the door. For many, this is the only visible path forward. The issue isn’t the effort-it’s that the system starts mistaking the certificate for the capability, the paper for the person.

There’s a big difference between doing a certification to validate what you’ve already mastered through real-world experience-and doing a certification to replace that experience. The problem isn’t that certificates exist. It’s that the system stopped asking what came before the certificate.

“Credentials were meant to validate capability-not replace it.”

Compliance Theatre: 80.0000001%

In cybersecurity, we joke about it all the time-organizations doing just enough to meet a checklist. SOC2? ISO? Just hit that 80% mark and call it a day. Nobody’s going to clap for your 100%. There’s no extra reward, no leaderboard.

So what do we do?

We aim for 80.0000001%.

“Just enough to pass is rarely enough to grow.”

In some ways, you can’t blame us. When the reward stops at the threshold, there’s no bonus for going beyond it. Just enough to win becomes a rational-almost inevitable-strategy. But it’s still worth asking: what kind of excellence are we sacrificing in the process?

Maybe the issue isn’t that companies aim for the line-but that we’ve drawn the line in the wrong place.

That’s the problem with binary systems. They don’t encourage you to go the extra mile. They whisper, “Hey, this much is enough.” And when “enough” becomes the ceiling, excellence is optional. (Optional is polite-speak for “nobody bothers anymore.”)

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MVP: Minimum Viable Perfection

MVPs were supposed to be starting points.
Now they’re treated like final products, shipped, marketed, and sometimes abandoned. Why build a great product when “good enough” already gets you funding and some traction?

We’ve made “just ship it” the gospel truth. And in a world of perpetual beta, where nothing is ever truly finished and the next iteration is always around the corner, maybe that’s by design.

(As I noted in Why Boring Tools Keep Us Productive: “Old tech eventually went stable. New tech just moves the goalpost every few weeks.”)

I do wonder: what’s been lost in the rush to be first, visible, or algorithmically blessed?*

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It’s Not Laziness. It’s Efficiency… Right?

Let’s be fair. This isn’t always about laziness.
It’s about incentives. And most of the time, people respond to incentives exactly as designed.

If a certification is a job gateway, you prep to pass.
If the algorithm likes comments, you farm them.
If a security audit gives you a score, you hit that score.

Doing more than that? It’s seen as wasteful.
Who’s going to pat your back for being thorough?

(And if you’re curious about how systems quietly take control, this reflection on code and control might resonate.)

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But Here’s the Thing…

This whole “optimize for the metric” mindset is infectious.
It doesn’t just shape what we do-it shapes who we become.

We start treating everything like a system to game.
We chase shortcuts, not depth.
We build personas, not purpose.

“We’ve learned to perform instead of participate.”

And maybe, just maybe, we wake up one day wondering why everything feels hollow.

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The Pursuit vs. The Pass

Which brings me to a deeper question:
Are we meant to aim for 80% and call it a win?
Or is the pursuit-the messy, exhausting, sometimes pointless pursuit-the point itself?

You play the game. But sometimes, the game plays you.

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So What Now?

I don’t have a cheat code for this.
(If I did, I’d be selling a course on it. With a certificate. Obviously.)

But I do think it’s worth pausing-before the next post, next product, next cert-and asking:

Am I doing this because I care?
Or because it scores?

And if the answer is the latter, maybe that’s okay.
But let’s at least be honest about it.

Because the more we game the system, the more it games us back.

Optimized for Whom?

The deeper problem? Many of these systems are optimized for one thing, but marketed as another.

A learning platform claims to exist for student growth-but it’s really optimized to increase signup rates, because more users mean more revenue and better optics for investors. User churn doesn’t matter as long as new signups outpace it. The real customer isn’t the student-it’s the VC, the private equity firm, or the next potential buyer.

Certifications promise to represent skill-but they often just reward memorization. The student thinks they’re buying credibility. The system just wants volume. What’s sold as purpose ends up being just performance.

“When the product is scale, nuance is collateral damage.”

We’re not just navigating bad incentives-we’re navigating systems that are optimized for stakeholders we never meet, and misled into believing those incentives serve us.

“Maybe the real rebellion is caring anyway.”

Maybe the real win isn’t in outsmarting the system – but in refusing to let it rewrite our values. In choosing to care, even when the score doesn’t reflect it. In building for depth when visibility rewards shallowness.

Because someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll look back and realize: it was never about where we arrived, but how we chose to walk. That the pursuit, not the destination; was where the meaning lived all along.

And yes, I know; many of us don’t always get to choose the long road. Sometimes survival is the score. But for those of us who can pause, reflect, and choose : we owe it to ourselves to aim beyond the minimum.