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Companies must stop using Google Analytics

imy.se

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Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#191

Post by fullstackchris »

capybara_2020 wrote: post #90
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Roll your own" is hubris, unless you have the time, energy, inclination, theoretical knowledge, etc; I wouldn't try and solve solved problems if you can help it. But, host your own is definitely recommended IMO; a lot of the GDPR issues are resolved if you just host your own, because no data is shared to a 3rd party. Then you only need to worry about getting some approval and data retention. I'm sure data retention…

I would love to know other peoples opinion on this. But I am coming around to the idea that self hosted(atleast partially) might be cheaper and better if you are a single dev/a small team. The learning curve on the tools/hosting providers out there is has become very steep. Plus the costs are unclear with a lot of cloud providers and monthly subscription charges across the services you need can quickly stack up or th…

I thought (though apparently with these comments I'm in the minority) the most recent conventional wisdom has reverted to agreeing that yes, starting on self-hosted / managed servers is the best path. Seems like naysayers in here don't know how to set up a server with NGINX / SSL / whatever else you need. IMO these are _required_ experiences before trying to do it on a much more complex platform like AWS. These self managed server setup tasks are more than manageable for a small team, or even a solo dev, in a matter of a day or two.

My go to 'cloud' path is just a digital ocean droplet, using docker containers to spool up whatever you need and connect it all on a docker network.

A single server (2-4 cores) running quite literally ANY modern backend framework (node, go, C#) should be able to handle _thousands_ of requests per second, I'm not sure where or when this idea has disappeared, it seems like everyone automatically assumes their small SaaS or webshop needs an autoscaling kubernetes 20 rack workhorse of a server. Not the case at all!!!!

Scale when you need to - if you're getting the kind of traffic where you need to, by then you won't need to worry about the added cost to do the actual scaling / upgrading.

Sorry for the winded / ranty answer, I've done this like 20+ times at this point and always had to battle against the "let's put it on AWS with kubectl and 2349023 redundant instances!", when in the long run it was never needed...

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#192

Post by weird-eye-issue »

janus24 wrote: post #39
esalman wrote: post #8

Unrelated: I used ChatGPT to generate remark.js presentation HTML code from some content. It did generate the code, but it inserted a GA snippet along with a random GA account code at the bottom of the code. I did not even catch it immediately (laziness, totally my fault), but noticed it a couple of days later when I was modifying the presentation.

> totally my fault IMHO, it's not totally your fault; private information shouldn't be shared with others. It's your responsibility to verify what ChatGPT is writing before you use it; it's OpenAI's responsibility to not share private information.

Here you are making assumptions this was somebody's valid GA ID and not dummy data...

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#194

Post by Garvi »

narag wrote: post #188
Garvi wrote: post #91

Every time a client makes me implement google analytics or facebook pixel code I die a little inside. And even though some actually use google ads, they have zero benefit from using analytics. I know, because I'm the one adjusting their campaigns. It's just another thing everyone does and one would be stupid not to, right, right? The lemming mentality always makes me sad because so many bad things in our society are…

https://www.amazon.es/Smoking-Liadora-cigarrillos-metal-70-m...

Haha, thanks. I actually have one of those. I roll faster without it :)

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#195

Post by err4nt »

dijit wrote: post #34

My sister-in-law (girlfriends brothers girlfriend, not that it matters) recently studied for a data analytics certification. Actually several. The entire course (located on here: https://medieinstitutet.se ) is based on Google Analytics. Now her entire value is tied to the use of Google Analytics, she will almost certainly fight very hard to ensure that these skills remain relevant, nobody would want to retrain for 6…

There's a saying: You'll never get rich harvesting in someone else's garden. It's not just Google Analytics, all Google products can be killed off at Google's whim any time, and it's not just google. That's why it's so important to work with tools you could own.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#196

Post by prime17569 »

dijit wrote: post #34

My sister-in-law (girlfriends brothers girlfriend, not that it matters) recently studied for a data analytics certification. Actually several. The entire course (located on here: https://medieinstitutet.se ) is based on Google Analytics. Now her entire value is tied to the use of Google Analytics, she will almost certainly fight very hard to ensure that these skills remain relevant, nobody would want to retrain for 6…

This is almost like U.S. high schools, which almost exclusively require students to have Texas Instruments TI-84 series calculators in math class.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#197

Post by [deleted] »

bdcravens wrote: post #132
anonylizard wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, job for people who only knew google analytics exist? I thought at minimum SQL is required, and today's analysts also need to know python/pandas at minimum. Imagine being a 'frontend developer' who can only use squarespace.

> Imagine being a 'frontend developer' who can only use squarespace. More likely: Imagine being a 'frontend developer' who can only use React.

[deleted]

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#198

Post by rvense »

anonylizard wrote: post #119
dijit wrote: post #34

My sister-in-law (girlfriends brothers girlfriend, not that it matters) recently studied for a data analytics certification. Actually several. The entire course (located on here: https://medieinstitutet.se ) is based on Google Analytics. Now her entire value is tied to the use of Google Analytics, she will almost certainly fight very hard to ensure that these skills remain relevant, nobody would want to retrain for 6…

Wow, job for people who only knew google analytics exist? I thought at minimum SQL is required, and today's analysts also need to know python/pandas at minimum. Imagine being a 'frontend developer' who can only use squarespace.

IDK, I used to worked with "Drupal consultants" who barely knew PHP. They delivered the sites they were asked to, usually on time and within budget.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#199

Post by moduspol »

pbmonster wrote: post #176
fullstackchris wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said; we also have "Cloud Engineer" as a job title, so I'm not sure we will learn this lesson. Comparing something as vast and broadly reaching as "Cloud" is a disengenous comparison to something as specific as a tool like Google Analytics, kind of a wierd comparison IMO. The entire pattern of tech is towards the "cloud" - even if you refuse to use the big ones like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, it's still tec…

> Comparing something as vast and broadly reaching as "Cloud" is a disengenous comparison to something as specific as a tool like Google Analytics Is it? Tons of cloud people I know are very narrowly specialized and certified on AWS or Azure. They certainly don't ever apply for jobs using the other... I'm sure they could retrain. But I'm also sure they don't want to.

At this point, being a "cloud" engineer essentially means that you're good at understanding and adapting to new services / value propositions, since they become available quite regularly. It doesn't mean, "really good at EC2, and incapable of learning more."

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#200

Post by scarface_74 »

err4nt wrote: post #195
dijit wrote: post #34

My sister-in-law (girlfriends brothers girlfriend, not that it matters) recently studied for a data analytics certification. Actually several. The entire course (located on here: https://medieinstitutet.se ) is based on Google Analytics. Now her entire value is tied to the use of Google Analytics, she will almost certainly fight very hard to ensure that these skills remain relevant, nobody would want to retrain for 6…

There's a saying: You'll never get rich harvesting in someone else's garden. It's not just Google Analytics, all Google products can be killed off at Google's whim any time, and it's not just google. That's why it's so important to work with tools you could own.

So are you suggesting that the standard company that uses 39 different SaaS products (https://financesonline.com/saas-software-statistics/) should give up all the products that meet their needs and only use free software?
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