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Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

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Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#11

Post by Illniyar »

dmix wrote: post #7

> The problem is this: if we aren’t paying for the product, we are the product. This quote keeps living on endlessly. It's based on a naive and terribly over-simplified view of the internet, 'free' products, and capitalism in general. TLDR: Consumers aren't the product if the product would not exist without customers, and customers wouldn't be on the product unless it provides them value. Not to mention publisher web…

I don't think it's naive or oversimplified. If you don't pay for the product, then someone is paying for the product - either it's taking a loss (venture capital burn, self hosting), another person is paying for it (donations, freemiums) or your data is being used for profit.

If your data is used for profit, you and your data is what the company sells to other people. By definition you are the product.

Whether that's a bad thing depends on your view, but to me it means the product I use is skewed towards the needs of the people who pay, which often have demands that aren' in my best interest.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#12

Post by nerdponx »

eli wrote: post #6

> "[Google Analytics is] assembling data profiles on your website visitors, which they can then use for better targeting of advertisements across their network." I'm pretty sure this is misleading/false. I don't think Google uses Analytics data from your site to target AdWords on other sites. Maybe it's true in a general sense that GA gives them lots of aggregate data which they can use to make smarter business decis…

This may have been true at one point, but I don't think it's true anymore.

https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245

https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

Interesting aside: Google Analytics customers are required to prominently state that their site uses Google Analytics. I suspect many, if not most, customers don't do this.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#14

Post by conductr »

> Want to see a demo of Fathom? View our live stats here (user: demo@demo.com, password: demo)

This is UX feedback from a lazy user. Why make me type in a login and password? Especially one that I have to remember from the previous screen?

It's trivial effort to just setup an auto login based on some query string parameter right? As in, url?demo=true results in either populating the login/password fields so all I have to do is hit the button, but then it's also trivial effort to just add in some JS that triggers the button for me, thus auto login.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#15

Post by driverdan »

andrewfromx wrote: post #10

Well my first thought was, wait, what if this is a trojan horse? Like, what if a big evil tech giant was behind this and this started all 100% ok but it was/is a trap? And even if it’s not a current evil tech giant behind this, what if fathom becomes google over time?

It's open source. You can review the code.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#16

Post by traskjd »

conductr wrote: post #14

> Want to see a demo of Fathom? View our live stats here (user: demo@demo.com, password: demo) This is UX feedback from a lazy user. Why make me type in a login and password? Especially one that I have to remember from the previous screen? It's trivial effort to just setup an auto login based on some query string parameter right? As in, url?demo=true results in either populating the login/password fields so all I hav…

I always struggle with this type of response on UX issues. They always seem to think the 'how' is important, and that the length of time that takes is also important.

It's not.

You don't need to explain how to do it, you don't need to make an argument on time to implement - unless the time to implement is insanely high.

Use the language of business: You are losing prospects by creating work for them. Resolving this will help your sales funnel. Over time this could be worth substantial revenue, and contribute to the ultimate survival of your product. That is worth a lot more than how long it takes to implement or how to do it.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#17

Post by thinkmassive »

yoran wrote: post #2

For people looking for similar options, there's also Matomo[1] (previously Piwik) that you can self-host for free. [1] https://matomo.org/

I came to the comments to see how this compares with Piwik. Didn’t realize it was also renamed, so thanks!

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#18

Post by Karunamon »

Illniyar wrote: post #11
dmix wrote: post #7

> The problem is this: if we aren’t paying for the product, we are the product. This quote keeps living on endlessly. It's based on a naive and terribly over-simplified view of the internet, 'free' products, and capitalism in general. TLDR: Consumers aren't the product if the product would not exist without customers, and customers wouldn't be on the product unless it provides them value. Not to mention publisher web…

I don't think it's naive or oversimplified. If you don't pay for the product, then someone is paying for the product - either it's taking a loss (venture capital burn, self hosting), another person is paying for it (donations, freemiums) or your data is being used for profit. If your data is used for profit, you and your data is what the company sells to other people. By definition you are the product. Whether that's…

>If your data is used for profit, you and your data is what the company sells to other people. By definition you are the product.

The reason this is naive and oversimplified is that, say, Google, does not sell your data. Your data is their competitive advantage and they have every reason to not sell it. There is no service Google provides where someone can go in and request your data or access it.

Advertisers are generally not buying you, or your data, they are buying access to your attention based on the data a third party has about you, but not the data itself.

Selling your information is a different business model (think insurance, credit reports, LexisNexis and so on) and is usually not what's under discussion when this thought-terminating cliché gets used.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#20

Post by eli »

nerdponx wrote: post #12
eli wrote: post #6

> "[Google Analytics is] assembling data profiles on your website visitors, which they can then use for better targeting of advertisements across their network." I'm pretty sure this is misleading/false. I don't think Google uses Analytics data from your site to target AdWords on other sites. Maybe it's true in a general sense that GA gives them lots of aggregate data which they can use to make smarter business decis…

This may have been true at one point, but I don't think it's true anymore. https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245 https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites Interesting aside: Google Analytics customers are required to prominently state that their site uses Google Analytics. I suspect many, if not most, customers don't do this.

It's admittedly confusing, but I think I'm still right and that you may be conflating policies about other google services. From your second link, which is specific to Analytics, it says:

> What is the data used for?

> Google uses Google Analytics data to provide the Google Analytics measurement service to customers. Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs are used to measure user interactions with a customer’s sites and/or apps, while IP addresses are used to provide and protect the security of the service, and to give the customer a sense of where in the world their users come from.

I'm pretty sure GA data doesn't intermingle with AdWords targeting profiles in a default configuration.

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