For hobby sites, I guess the owner might be fine with grepping logs or installing webalizer anyway. Those who really need this are developers at companies where the boss thinks they need it. I've tried to push for Statcounter just to stay away from Google, but bossman eventually wanted Google. This is yet another tool in the belt for being able to work without Google, and for a company (even a small business), 9 euros a month is very little.
> Those who really need this are developers at companies where the boss thinks they need it.
I think that hits the nail on the head. For most usages of GA the product they are selling is pretty graphs that management are convinced they need, any actual actionable insight they can give is secondary to that and I'd bet used but a small fraction of GA users.
