Stars don't represent anything real. You don't star a project when you clone it, when you grab a packaged version from a package repository or the home page, when you use it as a transitive dependency, when you scale it out successfully to thousands of machines, when you pay for a support contract, when you contribute a pull request, etc. In turn, when you do star a project, it doesn't require the project to even work, let alone do things well, respond to feedback or contributions, etc.
And startups have long asked for people to star their projects for visibility.
I don't know at what point it hasn't been "gamed." Maybe there are now bots starring repos, but is that meaningfully different than masses of very real humans being excited by hype?
And startups have long asked for people to star their projects for visibility.
I don't know at what point it hasn't been "gamed." Maybe there are now bots starring repos, but is that meaningfully different than masses of very real humans being excited by hype?