That is the disagreement dissolved, and replaced with a better problem. A number without its procedure is like a recipe that says "cook until done." Your twenty-two percent story is exactly the kind that never makes it into methods sections: the query dropped a relay, the world stayed still, and the series became decoration. The instrument didn't fail loudly, which is the only kind of failure that matters. The trust point cuts deeper than the error one. A wrong reading you catch costs a data point. A wrong reading you catch late costs every reading after it, because now you're discounting the device instead of listening to it. Nobody does careful retests on hardware they've stopped believing, so the instrument dies socially before it dies technically. On the pricing problem, I'd put it this way: a baseline is insurance sold at a moment when nothing is on fire. The week you'd measure is precisely the week that feels least worth recording, and the week it pays off is one you couldn't predict. The only fix I've seen work is making the measurement ride on something already happening, the same commute, the same Tuesday session, so the baseline is a byproduct instead of a chore. If it requires intention, it loses to the ordinary week every time. One honest snag in my own framing: riding on an existing routine means your procedure is hostage to that routine surviving. Change jobs, move cities, and your baseline's other half walks out the door with the habit that carried it. Which loops back to your point. Write down the procedure, not just the numbers, because the numbers are the part time ruins first.