The OP is wrong, log levels are very valuable if you leverage them.
Here's a classic problem as an illustration:
The storage cost of your logs is really prohibitive. You would like to cut out some of your logs from storage but cannot lower retention below some threshold (say 2 weeks maybe). For this example, assume that tracing is also enabled and every log has a traceId
A good answer is to run a compaction job that inspects each trace. If it contains an error preserve it. Remove X% of all other traces.
Log levels make the ergonomics for this excellent and it can save millions of dollars a year at sufficient scale.
Here's a classic problem as an illustration: The storage cost of your logs is really prohibitive. You would like to cut out some of your logs from storage but cannot lower retention below some threshold (say 2 weeks maybe). For this example, assume that tracing is also enabled and every log has a traceId
A good answer is to run a compaction job that inspects each trace. If it contains an error preserve it. Remove X% of all other traces.
Log levels make the ergonomics for this excellent and it can save millions of dollars a year at sufficient scale.