peripheralfocus
Veteran Member
Okay, it's the unreasonable inferences that I am referring to when I say 'guesses' or 'estimates'. I thought that was obvious.
Of course the numbers themselves are just data, and if they aren't used as evidence for conclusions that they can't support, as I said, then they obviously do no harm. But that's how people use them -- every time I see them cited, they are used as if they are reliable or, worse, exact indications of Nikon unit sales.
It wouldn't even bother me if people use them to muse about Nikon unit sales, as long as they clearly state the significant limitations of their conclusions. If somebody says, "based on the serial number database, it looks like Nikon may have sold a lot more D3 cameras than D4 cameras, but we don't really know by how much and it's a tentative conclusion at best," I'd be fine with that. I'd even agree that those numbers could be used that way for making tentative estimates, or tossing around ideas, or thought experiments, or whatever. I did exactly that kind of thing when I reasoned from D3 production figures to a guess about production totals, but labeled it, clearly, multiple times, as no more than a guess. Wouldn't bet more than a Belgian beer on it. (Although I would bet that beer, and like my chances.)
But that's not how it happens around here. Around here, conclusions about unit sales figures based on those serial numbers are presented as hard facts, all the time. And since a lot of people don't know where those numbers come from, they often assume they must be known facts. You see it all the time; somebody says, "Oh, I didn't know that. Well, if they only sold 10,000, no wonder they're not updating the Wizorama 1000. Wow, Nikon really screwed the pooch on the Wizorama."
We had a long thread on this forum just a few weeks ago about why Nikon has only sold about 15,000 Z5 cameras, including none -- zero -- in the U.S. and China (which together represent about 50% of the global camera market) in a year and a half. What???
Well, this is actually a real issue. Obviously, it's easy to make errors in data entry. Do we think every serial number entered was done without any typos?
But beyond that, it's easy for me to imagine somebody going on that site and submitting false numbers intentionally. Could be a Nikon fan trying to make it look like Nikon sold more of Camera X than they really did. But it also could just be a destructive desire to screw with people. Human beings do that stuff all the time.
Now, I don't think these possibilities are worth wasting much thought on in this case, so I'm happy to ignore them, but they definitely exist. And people and organizations such as pollsters who collect statistically sound data for a living, on important topics, do try to account for them.
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