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Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

plausible.io

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Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#121

Post by throwaway2048 »

WJW wrote: post #98
bertil wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much every company first data person runs Cost-per-action (CPA) analysis to estimate how many sales can be attributable to ads vs. other ways of raising your brand. It’s an imperfect science (just use the word “attribution” to trigger shivers in any data person) but it’s very clear that targeted platforms offer dramatically cheaper leads for almost every product. That’s why the hostility to ads feels misp…

> it helps company to whom you want to give money to find you You mean, the companies who want me to give them money. I'm sure there are a few companies out there whose product I actually want and don't mind paying for, but their number is absolutely dwarfed by the number of companies that seek to induce FOMO/status anxiety/etc in order to get me to buy things I don't need and would not want if not for advertising.

every advertising platform wants to pretend they are delivering useful products that people would otherwise be unaware of, but almost exclusively deliver what you have identified.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#123

Post by ignoramous »

dgudkov wrote: post #110

It amazes me that over the last 10-20 years an astonishing amount of money and intellectual capital have been invested in adtech and crypto but nothing in micropayments. Ads are evil, but it will remain a moot point until we have working micropayments. We have (and will have) ads with all their downsides exactly because we don't have micropayments, because ads basically work as a substitute to micropayments.

Cryptocurrencies, ironically, enable micropayments. Orchid.com did an extensive write-up on how they achieve this (https://www.orchid.com/assets/whitepaper/whitepaper.pdf Chapter 5, Nanopayments) The Brave Attention Token is another example.

Although, I am not convinced micropayments would save the Internet from this ad-winter: It is hard to beat free at scale.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#124

Post by qualudeheart »

scrollaway wrote: post #48
superasn wrote: post #45

That's why I prefer goaccess(1) over any other tool that uses client side Javascript. It's basically a real time website log analyser which gives you enough information to know whats happening on your website but doesn't require any pesky Javascript etc to do it. Also since it is works by analysing your log files it can never be blocked. (1) https://rt.goaccess.io/?20210826211303

By nature it won't filter out bots, however. One of my clients' website traffic is composed of over 75% bot traffic. Server-side logs are unusable for anything other than site performance.

Can I evade tracking by disgusing my traffic as bot traffic? Sounds like a startup idea.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#125

Post by wodenokoto »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

Is it the Simpsons or Seinfeld where in one episode one of the characters gets a Nielsen box that is used for measuring tv viewership and they can’t leave the house for fear of shows being canceled if they’re not home to watch it.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#126

Post by turbinerneiter »

hkai wrote: post #107
turbinerneiter wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I.e. ads, facebooks feed, endless scrollers like 9gag -> they like to use dark patterns and exploit tricks against the human mind to keep and guide your attention. The harm if targeted ads depends on your viewpoint. A targeted ad might serve you something you were looking for anyway, or it might manipulate you into spending on something you don't actually need. I.e. look at Instagram influencers, showing off their fa…

Seriously, you're worried about someone spending more time on their phone or spending more money on goods and services? Spending their own money — not the public money? That's what freedom is to you? Not the freedom to talk to whoever you want, say whatever you want or pay whoever you want?

I have no clue where you derive any of these things from. I certainly never said any of it. I never even made a claim a out freedom.

I was talking about how ads, tv programming, trackers and such have a tendency to create a positive feedback loop, which leads people towards less quality and mindless consumption. And about a fun idea from a movie, to break this feedback loop and replace it with another one, that promotes higher quality content.

You then started talking about a different topic and are now accusing me of not being interested in free speech.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#127

Post by lopis »

FriedrichN wrote: post #34

Seeing as Plausible is still a script, how much of the remaining percentage of Firefox/Linux users are blocking scripts entirely? My default uMatrix settings block everything but first party CSS and images.

Considering that most of the web is unusable for most people without javascript, I'm pretty sure no-script people are a very very small portion of the internet.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#128

Post by Lio »

hkai wrote: post #97
turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

I can't quite understand this. By "exploiting" you simply mean targeting ads? The real harm seems to be from the tech giants censoring speech and policing payments, but what's the harm that someone targets a pair of shorts that I might like or show an ad for a conference I might be interested in?

It's a question of control; no should mean no.

Some people don't want to be tracked or monitored by advertising companies and it should be enough to just say so without companies like Facebook always trying to sneak tracking back in via dark pattens, shadow profiles, etc, etc.

For example once you've seen a website offer you the same product for different prices based on arbitrary tracking it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#129

Post by superasn »

scrollaway wrote: post #48
superasn wrote: post #45

That's why I prefer goaccess(1) over any other tool that uses client side Javascript. It's basically a real time website log analyser which gives you enough information to know whats happening on your website but doesn't require any pesky Javascript etc to do it. Also since it is works by analysing your log files it can never be blocked. (1) https://rt.goaccess.io/?20210826211303

By nature it won't filter out bots, however. One of my clients' website traffic is composed of over 75% bot traffic. Server-side logs are unusable for anything other than site performance.

Goaccess does have a separate panel for Crawlers/Bots(1) but I think it's based on the UA.

There is also an option to ignore IPs/Referrers too which can work very well for such cases.

(1) https://goaccess.io/features#:~:text=Spot%20aggressive%20hos...

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#130

Post by ignoramous »

qualudeheart wrote: post #124
scrollaway wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By nature it won't filter out bots, however. One of my clients' website traffic is composed of over 75% bot traffic. Server-side logs are unusable for anything other than site performance.

Can I evade tracking by disgusing my traffic as bot traffic? Sounds like a startup idea.

You're likely going to end up implementing a poor man's Tor.
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