Switch to non-Google analytics service

[jgaehring]

I noticed another website using Simple Analytics today, and not for the first time:
https://www.simpleanalytics.com/

With the changes for #48 still fresh in my mind, I figured it would be a good time at least open an issue for this, b/c I know we've discussed it before and it seems like switching to Simple or something similar would be a no-brainer for our community. It's not something I know a ton about, however, so I would defer to others w/ more experience.

I did a quick look for Gatsby plugins, too, and I really like this one:
https://github.com/DavidWells/analytics/tree/master/packages/gatsby-plugin-analytics

I haven't dug deep, but I like the look of it b/c it's a fairly thin plugin wrapper around a well-maintained, framework-agnostic library for any analytics service you could imagine:
https://getanalytics.io/

Really nice docs!

[mstenta]

+1 to moving off of Google Analytics! For data privacy and ideological reasons primarily (in case anyone is wondering why).

However, I'm not sure how I feel about switching to a paid service. Speaking personally, I have almost NEVER used the data from Google Analytics. Maybe paying for something would incentivize us to be more mindful about that - but honestly I think it would be hard to justify.

FWIW I've also heard of this: https://matomo.org - Which is FOSS and self-hostable. Although for the same reason I don't know if the effort to host/maintain would be justified either.

Just my 2 cents.

Maybe we stick with GA for the time being, and first focus on developing some processes around actually USING the data before we take any next steps? In either case, thanks for opening this issue! +1

[jgaehring]

FWIW I've also heard of this: https://matomo.org - Which is FOSS and self-hostable. Although for the same reason I don't know if the effort to host/maintain would be justified either.

Oh, that's even better! I don't see it listed among the supported third-party analytics plugins for the analytics npm library, but perhaps with that architecture it's less relevant. And yea, still some major trade-offs there. I guess I was forgetting that any legit privacy focused analytics would (and fairly should) come with a price tag, in one form or another.

Maybe we stick with GA for the time being, and first focus on developing some processes around actually USING the data before we take any next steps?

Agreed. Not ideal, but perhaps we can export whatever data we have there once we reach that point, and then fold that process into the greater branding initiative, which will soon be the last of our four major steps on the roadmap to the new farmos.org (huzzah for checklists!!!), should we elect to do it. That larger process would require outside designers and a more concerted funding push, imo, if we're really serious about improving our brand and overall design. And whether or not analytics should be a part of that strategy should probably be decided in the course of that broader effort.