Companies must stop using Google Analytics • Hacker News Board

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#331

Post by ozim » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #290

ozim wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to get a French car in Poland, most shops are used to deal with VW, Audi. It is not impossible but if you try to go to a random shop you found on Google and fix your Citroen or Renault you might be surprised.

It could just be a parts issue. A lot of mechanics will work on pretty much any car, if they have the parts, but if it's not a popular model then they don't want it sitting in their shop for a week while they order parts. I guess some mechanics will prefer to work with a smaller number of models, because they're much faster if they're familiar with the model, but new models come out every year, and they need to learn…

So that is circling back to original topic.

I believe person learning GA could learn any other analytics tool. It is just not worth their time.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#332

Post by DrScientist » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:11 PM UTC

tuhriel wrote: post #289

DrScientist wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For practical things it's hard to teach in the abstract - you have to do - and doing means choosing some sort of toolchain - typically the most popular is a frequent choice. As an example imagine learning programming - without some real world practice. And if you do some real world practice you have to choose which tool to use. I take your broader point - but I think it's inevitable that most courses of this type are…

I see your point to a certain...eh point. During my studies we also had our ERP course accompanied with some specific tasks on one tool (don't ask me for the name now, its been some time). BUT it was accompanied only, we usually had the concepts presented beforehand. If you want to go a step further...show an alternative from time to time. But I don't agree with the python comparison. Python is only a language and ev…

It comes down to the course - a course that just teaches a cargo cult like set of steps is a bad course, one that involves a proper discussion of the fundamentals is a good one.

All I'm saying, the fact that a course uses a particular tool chain isn't the determinant factor to whether a course is good or not.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#333

Post by dolmen » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:12 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #302

simonsarris wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is deeply bizarre how much worse GA4 is as a product. I don't understand it.

It's much worse to comply with onerous EU regulations. They make it painstakingly useless.

And, as a EU citizen, that's a good thing.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#334

Post by dolmen » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #16

deofoo wrote: post #10

For those who look for an alternative https://plausible.io is a great replacement.

Or if you're after free analytics, Cloudflare has something. Should be GDPR compliant since they don't use cookies or local storage.

If data about EU citizen goes outside EU, it is illegal.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#335

Post by DrScientist » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #301

rabuse wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. We're taught that for everything from investing to dating.

This gets far more difficult as one competitor in an industry nears monopoly status. Lets say for example that you somehow make $120,000 a year over expenses with instagram (don't ask how, it's just an example). This is far more than you previously made in your last job by double. The problem is it takes nearly 100% of your working time to make this income on that single platform. Any less amount of effort and your i…

You could define all your eggs in one basket a different way.

So you could think about not operating as an individual who can be picked off, but operating in a collective way - either through friends, insurance, or unions.

ie what's your support network if you are dropped through no fault of your own.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#336

Post by jmye » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

majesticglue wrote: post #303

jhartwig wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'actual stupidity'... gotta love the general disdain of the 'run of the mill business drone'... It's funny my wife is a run of the mill business drone. She thinks IT is a bunch of assholes. I would say she is probably right. Way to keep things going.

and IT "assholes" think the run of the mill business drones are "assholes" as well. Their inability to be effective at their jobs tend to make IT lives worse because they can't understand what IT workers do but IT workers can understand what the basic run of the mill business drones do...and their work tends to be a bunch of pointless meetings. Yeah, I work at a corporate office and have made it a mission to see what…

> but IT workers can understand what the basic run of the mill business drones do...and their work tends to be a bunch of pointless meetings.

What an ironic comment.

Sorry, any early-career worker looking down their nose at anyone else (or pretending to have any idea what their job entails, especially because they “looked at a calendar”) might as well go back to middle school. They definitely need to grow up.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#337

Post by DrScientist » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #139

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…

Im still waiting for the Scrum fad to passover and the entire scrum masters guild to be without a job.

A bit like Instagram etc - there has to be a new fad for those people to move to for that to happen.

So sadly these things don't tend to go away, they just evolve.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#338

Post by Bloating » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:20 PM UTC

majesticglue wrote: post #303

jhartwig wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'actual stupidity'... gotta love the general disdain of the 'run of the mill business drone'... It's funny my wife is a run of the mill business drone. She thinks IT is a bunch of assholes. I would say she is probably right. Way to keep things going.

and IT "assholes" think the run of the mill business drones are "assholes" as well. Their inability to be effective at their jobs tend to make IT lives worse because they can't understand what IT workers do but IT workers can understand what the basic run of the mill business drones do...and their work tends to be a bunch of pointless meetings. Yeah, I work at a corporate office and have made it a mission to see what…

reminds me of the saying "don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that guy behind the tree".

Its always us vs them.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#339

Post by kstrauser » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

onionisafruit wrote: post #258

pSYoniK wrote: post #59

What I am curios about is how much people actually use ALL the analytics information provided by a lot of these tools. I know Matomo and other such open source/self-hostable solutions, but how much info do you really use? I think for most use cases users would want to know if their content is consumed/read. Maybe how long someone spends on it and where they came from. For this sort of stuff you can write a small scri…

Do you know a static host that makes logs available? I happen to be looking to do something like this right now, but I would rather not run my own web server for my simple static blog.

Nearlyfreespeech.net does. I’ve used them for many years to host static sites.

Re: Companies must stop using Google Analytics

#340

Post by Aerroon » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #51

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is the balkanization of the internet, although most folks in the EU want that for nationalistic reasons and to prop up their own industries, under a thin veneer of opposing US imperialism (but being unable to do anything with respect to the things which actually threaten the EU, such as an over dependence on Russia.)

I don't want my data in the hands of the NSA as much as you don't want yours in the hands of the BND, FSB, or the People's Liberation Army.

I would rather the NSA get my data than the BND though. But GDPR doesn't protect me from the latter. The intelligence agency at home is always a bigger threat to you than any foreign actor.