alt Hacker News> But... I don't truly know what my users want. There is no telemetry of any kind in Luxury Yacht. I like being able to say that, but it means I have no idea how many people are using it, or how they're using it. I don't know what features are the most important to other people.
So add telemetry and a request tracker like https://www.productboard.com/. This is not a solo vs team thing.
Replies
Most projects don't need telemetry. They need better logs.
On the backend... Why wouldn't you log every request that hits your server, and why wouldn't you already know what those requests mean? Why would you let your frontend make direct requests to any other server when you can just proxy it yourself and maintain control?
On the frontend... What's so hard about wrapping all your event listeners and periodically sending those logs back to your server?
That's not even scratching the surface, but even something this simple and easy to implement is already miles ahead of most free-tier telemetry offerings, and you retain full control.
I don't want to add telemetry. And I think this is where the solo vs team thing matters. I can just say "no telemetry" and I don't need to argue with anyone about it. I make the decision and live with the consequence.
I don't really need to know how many people use the app. It would be cool to know, but not necessary.
If someone wants a feature, or a fix, they can open an issue.