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We ditched Google Analytics

missiveapp.com

31–40 of 79 posts

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#31

On my personal blog, I just decided to go without any analytics. I feel like I'm writing for myself and to engage a close group of friends. Maybe make some new friends along the way. I don't want to blog for page views or retweets, it just feels like it creates a bad set of incentives. Ultimately the feeder bar of vanity metrics feels so draining. The important post that 5 people deeply appreciate is just as valuable…

This! Exactly this! The moment you start worrying about which posts/pages people looked at is the very moment you start getting sucked into the vortex that's called "pandering to the crowd". The extreme end of that is "clickbait content".

Down that road I wish not to go!

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#32
I put this line:

This site collects no analytics and calls no third-party scripts

On the footer of https://remotivo.com and I've already had a couple of people comment that they thought it was a nice touch. I just built this site/bot for a fun side-project, I don't care how many views it gets.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#34
post #3

Is anyone using an open source statistics system that's as simple as simple analytics? Maybe even something that can be setup to run stats for multiple clients from our own VPS?

I would say go with Countly [1]. It is both for mobile, web and desktop, unlike several products mentioned here.

[1] https://github.com/countly/countly-server

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#35

On my personal blog, I just decided to go without any analytics. I feel like I'm writing for myself and to engage a close group of friends. Maybe make some new friends along the way. I don't want to blog for page views or retweets, it just feels like it creates a bad set of incentives. Ultimately the feeder bar of vanity metrics feels so draining. The important post that 5 people deeply appreciate is just as valuable…

This! Exactly this! The moment you start worrying about which posts/pages people looked at is the very moment you start getting sucked into the vortex that's called "pandering to the crowd". The extreme end of that is "clickbait content". Down that road I wish not to go!

Yes, there are much better ways of getting user feedback, for example a comments section.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#36
post #25

Call me old-fashioned, but if developers really want to minimize their impact on visitors, I wonder why they shifted away from using plain old log files. In the screenshot of the dashboard, "screen size" is the only attribute I see which can't be derived from a web server request log entry. I was using Analog to analyze Apache logs back in the 1990's -- it's older than JS.

Because modern web apps/sites don't make tons of requests to look at in logs - they load up the SPA bundle and all the magic of navigation/etc. happens in the browser, with round trips back only to fetch occasional new resources.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#37
post #20
post #3

Is anyone using an open source statistics system that's as simple as simple analytics? Maybe even something that can be setup to run stats for multiple clients from our own VPS?

Freshlytics - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics * Cookies are not used * Personally identifiable information (PII) is not collected * See the pageview in different dimensions like page urls, referrers, browsers etc * Supports multiple projects * Supports RBAC Screenshots - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/docs/sc...

How does it track individual users without cookies?

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#38

Nice, idea for someone (I wish I had time)... "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Analytics - Self host analytics - Don't use google analytics - Don't use tracking pixels (FB, Reddit, etc) - etc "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Billing Practices (in same vein, a little off topic though) - Can cancel your subscription online - Sends reminders prior to charging card (dark pattern on some sites) - Open receipt API to scrape out hi…

Together with jivings I'm working on a ethical code of conduct [1]. Please add more if you want. Happy to make this a standard for websites. Maybe add a seal as well. [1] https://hackmd.io/EmPIHGhTRh6pDSJ1VEgkkA

Looks good, but needs additional specificity / testability.

> No hidden costs

What is a "hidden cost"? Sometimes pricing is complicated. For example, shipping and sales taxes vary based on the customer's location.

> No making it difficult to cancel/unsubscribe from a plan

Maybe: "An authenticated user must be able to review their past and upcoming charges within 2 clicks from the default view. This page must provide immediate options for cancelling/unsubscribing (2 additional clicks to allow for confirmation)."

Or weaker: "Users must be able to cancel/unsubscribe by any mechanism that they can use to sign up / subscribe. For example, if users can purchase a subscription on the website, a they cannot be required to make a phone call to cancel that subscription"

> Automated emails to not self generated mailing lists/social platforms

I don't understand what this means. Are you trying to prevent the companies from using third-party advertising targeting? That seems like an unreasonable ask. It would prevent using Google/Facebook/Twitter for basic marketing tasks.

> No spammy follow up emails

This is not testable. It would be more valuable to identify quantitative best practices and publish those. e.g. "When a user cancels a subscription, do not sent them more than 1 marketing email per month asking them to re-subscribe"

> Allow recipients to easily unsubscribe from mailing-list emails

This should be covered by the "no making it difficult to cancel" clause.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#39

Nice, idea for someone (I wish I had time)... "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Analytics - Self host analytics - Don't use google analytics - Don't use tracking pixels (FB, Reddit, etc) - etc "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Billing Practices (in same vein, a little off topic though) - Can cancel your subscription online - Sends reminders prior to charging card (dark pattern on some sites) - Open receipt API to scrape out hi…

> Can cancel your subscription online

I think this is legally required in EU at least? I mean, if you started the subscription online. Same with the trial I believe.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#40

Nice, idea for someone (I wish I had time)... "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Analytics - Self host analytics - Don't use google analytics - Don't use tracking pixels (FB, Reddit, etc) - etc "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Billing Practices (in same vein, a little off topic though) - Can cancel your subscription online - Sends reminders prior to charging card (dark pattern on some sites) - Open receipt API to scrape out hi…

Incidentally, California state law requires transparency around cancellation of subscriptions. Including online cancellation if the sub was started online.

https://blogs.findlaw.com/common_law/2018/07/what-to-know-ab...

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