[narrowrail]

>In theory MusicBrainz already has metrics

What does "in theory" mean here? Do those tables exist in whole or some part? Is this a matter of indexing an existing data set or hoping some data was acquired by accidental consequence?

[exogen]

I'm assuming it already exists due to the existence of pages like https://musicbrainz.org/tops/mb_top_stuff.html and https://stats.metabrainz.org, I'm just not positive of it. :)

Even if it's not collected though, it's data that they at least already have the ability to collect by simply flipping a switch, as opposed to spinning up a whole new ListenBrainz service and hoping it gains traction.

[Freso]

Oh, and the mp_top_stuff.html page was created less than a week ago.

You're absolutely right that we could, in theory, have that data, but we do not currently. Not in any usable form (for this purpose) anyway.

[Freso]

Note that ListenBrainz may be used for getting "popularity" metrics, but that is not its intended goal.