The text discusses the concept of growth hacking, a practice that uses tactics like scraping websites and spamming activity feeds to quickly increase business or user engagement. However, it argues that this approach can lead to a "Faustian bargain" where credibility is sacrificed for short-term gains, resulting in long-term damage to the business. The author suggests that true meaningful growth comes from metrics that capture value for both customers and businesses, such as tracking stores with over $1000 in monthly revenue, rather than arbitrary numbers or metrics that can be easily manipulated.