Thank you! I am glad it managed to reflect further!

Regarding your 2 points, I think both are really interesting and especially no 1 is something we always should consider.

Are we adding just another dependency or do we actually save some time / get some benefit?

I think the manual way is very strong because you get full control and zero dependencies. The only downside is that it is a lot of manual work and we don't want to reinvent the wheel!

I do think all of them are suitable in the different scenarios. When you are dealing with very quick and lightweight implementation, you can't beat the plug-and-play solutions in terms of speed/cost.

And for the more advanced solutions, do you get ALOT of functionality out of the box with tools like snowplow and Matomo. They will give you a huge headstart.

So unless the requirements are very specific and unique, they will suit most needs.

Regarding the transparency with data, I think it's key. It is a way to turn the GDPR issues into a marketing advantage. Transparency and data ethics are areas that users care about.

A solution as you describe will provide a lot of trust to your brand.

I believe medium.com is doing it and I've implemented a similar solution on kino.dk