[consoomer]

I'm not even sure what I just read. I thought it was going to explain why they don't use any analytics anymore and all I got as a 10,000 foot answer that could be summarized as, "Well, because!"

I don't use analytics on any of my services simply because I don't like analytics and people tracking me, so why would I do it to others?

Does it mean I don't track my business metrics? No. I still measure general conversion rates from sign up to payers. I measure things like sign ups per-month. You don't need analytics to track that. Basic metrics combined with a "CHANGELOG" file with dates/releases/fixes is plenty for my solo business. Want to know what I did in January to spike sign ups or more payers? Look at my change log.

[masswerk]

As I understood it, the idea is that analytics are the wrong answer, or rather, if they are an answer, at all, you're asking the wrong questions. Which I, in turn, interpret as a signal for more opinionated approaches.

(Meaning, if you follow these kind of metrics closely, you may actually miss crucial opportunities, as these will always bind you to the perceived mainstream. Moreover, these analytics are still sparse and there may be hidden variables. E.g, you may have changed something in January, but what happened else in January, elsewhere, which may have had some impact? Finally, these metrics are always about intermediate goals and partial results, but never about the entire product or mission. Metrics for these are found elsewhere.)

Disclaimer: I abandoned all analytics for my own projects some years ago, and I do not miss anything. So I may be somewhat sympathetic to this.