It’s an epistemology / ontology question, as folks familiar with the humanities would spot in little time. Aka it’s not “data” until something empowers the created metric a meaning.

The map is not the territory.

https://www.amazon.com/Raw-Data-Oxymoron-Infrastructures/dp/...

I know what all those words mean, I've studied critical theory, and I have no idea what your point is.

I think the point is that "data" is useless until it becomes "knowledge," and that turning data into knowledge is a complicated and philosophical act. Business being business, most of the people running the show were never interested in the deeper questions of how to create knowledge. They just wanted a new arrow in the quiver. Once they realized the cost of actually doing the work, it became much less appealing.

The map and the territory are pretty basic terms, right? There's a Wikipedia article on it, even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation

whenever I hear the word ontology I reach for my dictionary

It's starting to become a buzzword in data science too