Why There are Power Levels in Dragon Ball

Why were power levels invented in Dragon Ball to begin with? I occasionally encounter a video on the internet that speculates who had what power level and when or what ki multiplier each transformation, fusion or zen-ki boost is worth or etc., and I think they're all incorrect. Not only are they incorrect, there is no being correct when you're filling the gaps yourself or using third party resources. Toriyama did not plan some spreadsheet of power levels to keep throughout the series. If he had, he surely would have said so explicitly at some point. I agree with Team Four Star: Power levels are bullshit.

Think about it from a narrative point of view. If you want to make a story interesting, give the protagonist a weakness or make a strength redundant. Ki sensing was still new to the series by the time scouters were introduced. Goku only got the ability two story arcs ago and it was an ability he gained at the end of that arc. The next arc was the world martial arts tournament with Piccolo Jr. This arc showed how this ability gave Goku a very special advantage no one else had. Then it was revealed that Piccolo had the ability too. What if another new antagonist also had this power, negating the advantage it afforded to the protagonist? 

Well, Raditz is a space man. Give him a wristwatch for his face that tells power levels.

I don't know why Toriyama decided on the numbers that he did. I could speculate, but I don't like speculating on creative decisions. The facts of the matter are this: Dragon Ball was produced on a tight schedule, power levels were brand new, and the only aspect about the numbers that mattered were the differences. Toriyama is not the type of writer who plans out fine details well in advanced. This guy named major cities after directions, he named characters and powers after food, his girlfriend invented the motions for the Kamehameha when he asked her for an idea, he made decisions about a famous character design based on saving time, and he forgot that saiyajins have fucking tails.

Here are some more facts. Based on the numbers provided in the Raditz story arc, we know that at the time, Goku and Piccolo are many tens of times stronger than ordinary people. We know that weighted clothes reduce your ki somehow and by about 20% or so. We know that Goku is barely stronger than Piccolo. We know that special techniques are either several times as powerful as the fighters who use them or are a major ki amplifier. We know that the Kamehameha is stronger than the Special Beam Cannon. Finally, we know that Gohan is stronger than Goku. 

If a writer wanted to communicate this information to the reader, this creative method succeeded succinctly. I still remember the approximate differences almost 20 years later.

Scouters were used repeatedly during the saiyajin and the namek arcs. At some point they stopped giving specific numbers and gave a nice even rounded score to the nearest thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, etc. Power levels are clearly simplified at this point. This emphasizes the use of power levels as a means of giving the audience a measurable way to tell which character is stronger and by how much. If you want to suppose anything, suppose fans and editors were the real reason power levels persisted through the series as long as they did. This supposition can be supported by how much work goes into estimating power levels by third parties rather than Toriyama himself and that the last official power level from the manga is for Future Trunks when he fought Freeza and was clocked in at fucking 5.

Besides clever estimations by fans on forums and video sharing sites and the like, there are some sources of supposedly official power levels. There is a Dragon Ball encyclopedia series called Daizenshuu. These books are not written by Toriyama but do contain numbers from the manga. There are pamphlets (for fuck sake) that came with non-canon Dragon Ball movies written and directed by people other than Toriyama. There's a magazine called V-jump which has also released power levels. I can't find Toriyama's name on those and it looks like they were used as promotional material for Dragon Ball video games. 

If I were writing a series like this one, I would just use an imaginary tier, rank, or class system to categorize characters by their power and it would be based on my intuition because numbers are for games, not comics. I do appreciate that fans like power levels, but let's put this to rest. Find me a power level guide authored by Toriyama or else you or some other ass is assigning numbers based on arbitrary criteria (however reasonable they may be) where there are none because you're a human and humans like to make sense of things even when there's no sense to be made.