Gross domestic product (GDP) was never designed to be a measure of societal well-being. It tracks only market transactions, conflates costs and benefits, and ignores the distribution of income, the contributions of household labour and volunteer work, and social and environmental costs and benefits.
In the decades after the Second World War, GDP growth functioned as a reasonable proxy for well-being when rebuilding economies and increasing production and consumption were the main priorities. However, since about 1950, which some call the Anthropocene era, ecological limits, inequality and declining social cohesion have restricted further improvements in well-being...
Measuring and modelling what truly matters, not just market transactions, is now essential. Processes are under way to develop indicators that move beyond GDP. In May, the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres appointed a High-Level Expert Group to develop such measures, with a focus on balancing economic, social and environmental dimensions of well-being. This initiative builds on the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): target 19 of SDG17 commits governments to adopt beyond-GDP metrics by 2030.
Any metric will become the goal itself. It always has. In academia, citations became the metric and now we use them to determine good science, without having to actually think. I think it's a flaw built into the neurotypical (and lots of neurodivergent types too).
Edit: in fact, metrics are the cancer that eats democracies. Anything can be justified by "line go up".
I actually had kind of a shower tought today which relates to GDP as a metric and your comment. It started with a contractor at my work, who had met someone at another company who used to sell guns, drugs and whatever illegal. The guy basically said that he felt no remorse and needed to this at the time, because otherwise he wasn't able to afford the expensive brand clothes and other status symbol stuff. The tought hit me later that this is what we have become as a society, a place where having lots of stuff is more important than having morals. And because of metrics like GDP but also stuff like wealth hoarding, this mindset sets us on a path which can only lead to destruction. Throw in social media and it's influencers as a catalyst, and it only gets worse.