What is a data product?

Dustin Phillips, drummer for The Ataris, inspires a metaphor for understanding "data products" by likening them to songs, where individual musical tracks, akin to raw data sources, hold little value on their own but become valuable when combined and refined into a cohesive whole. Just as musicians record, mix, and master tracks to create a marketable song, data producers gather, clean, and transform raw data to produce a "data product" that can be accessed and used by data consumers through various channels. Productizing data, like creating a song, involves a significant initial investment but offers high returns when done well, making data discoverable and consistently usable. This approach contrasts with constantly building custom data pipelines, which can be costly and inefficient. The journey of refining data products mirrors the iterative process of musicians releasing remixes and remastered hits, emphasizing the continuous improvement needed to enhance quality, availability, and reliability.