The metric means what it has always meant: lower numbers mean higher transistor density on some area (the digital part) of the chip.

What more do you want? It’s as meaningful as a single number ever could be.

If you’re a consumer - if you don’t design chips - lower number means there’s some improvement somewhere. That’s all you need to know. It’s like horse powers on a car. The number doesn’t tell you everything about the performance under all conditions but it gives a rough idea comparatively speaking.

If you’re a chip designer then you never cared about the number they used in naming the process anyway. You would dig into the specification and design rules from the fab to understand the process. The “nm” number might show up in the design rules somewhere.. but that’s never been relevant to anyone, ever.

I really don’t understand why so many commenters feel the need to point out that “nm” doesn’t refer to a physical dimension. Who cares? It doesn’t have any impact on anyone. It’s very mildly interesting at best. It’s a near meaningless comment.