There's nothing wrong with tracking raw downloads, but for investors who are used to social media in which you 1) target specific people based on their interests with ad-like content that is generated to resemble those interests 2) track every conversion event those specific people do in your funnel, it's a far cry. And of course, those two criteria above are why social media became such a huge business, because that's more efficient than a radio ad, or a download count. I'd argue that these examples of great content are great precisely because the creators can't track their audiences very well. Their audiences have a vote every time they download.