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I agree with you that collecting data can be a good thing, and it can be analyzed at some later point. But in the case of online world, the lifetime of data is very small(this might not be for other industries). Trends change very rapidly, and using an old data for making inference might not be profitable if not a loss.

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Actually that's exactly the opposite of true. In fact you -need- old data to validate that your mathematical model actually works by applying it to whatever historical timespan of data you are trying to derive intelligence from. At least if any sort of unit of time is applicable to any of your models.

Of course just sitting on the data doesn't do anyone any good at all..and randomly picking at stuff isn't likely to do much either unless you go in knowing what you want to find.

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