"[it] exposed deep flaws in many customer's traffic data" -- this probably is why nobody cared that much and it got buried. See my longish reply below. The incentives are such that only metrics that make traffic look more valuable are metrics that publishers and ad agencies have any love for.
I'm sure a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- invented because it seems needed, and discarded because it actually worked and holy crap most traffic is garbage.
>a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades --
Most advertisers do track and measure actual revenue to them. I think your mistake is assuming junk traffic and bounced eyeballs dont convert or contribute to sales...They do. If you have a decent product with decent margins, each sale can pay for thousands of useless eyeballs.
I'm sure a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- invented because it seems needed, and discarded because it actually worked and holy crap most traffic is garbage.