[tootie]

I think some of the whiplash in the market isn't just the tit for tat battle with ad blockers and regulators but the realization that there's so much useless data being collected. The best data we get is first party (ie things people click or type into forms on our sites) or qualitative feedback from surveys. GA and GTM are valuable tools for us but Google's network isn't really.

[danhilltech]

Yea. Though, GA does (at least) two things: analyzes your own data, and, uses the data they collect from all their other sites to improve your experience via better bot detection, recommendations, insights. Google's network is useful, like it or not, for a) their cross device graph - they know which mobile devices and which desktop browsers are the same user (ish) and b) from that, building better MTA models than you can with pure first-party data - especially if most of your traffic isn't logged in.

But I agree, the future is pointing toward a world where privacy and empowerment is more in the hands of the user, and that's a good thing.