Yes I absolutely agree it can be useful.anf satisfying to see analytics. But it also means you send your users' data to another place where you know it will be recycled etc.

There are alternatives but as you say sadly none are as easy - probably because none have as much budget behind them. I see a number of comparison articles for gdpr compliant analytics, so it seems to have become its own market of sorts.

I have opted myself out of most Google services due to the intrusive nature, I wouldn't want to impose it on my site visitors (but I also have no need to monetize, so maybe a different ballpark).