I think mostly we are actually on the same page. One thing I would add in is that starting the whole web analytics endeavour from scratch needs a lot of work, testing and iterations. I am actually thinking that it would make sense for counter.dev to offer an API so that you can use that as a backend middleware or in some other way.

> One of the above suits me as a user; [...]

That might be true. But as roughly said let's say that for over 99% of people, just reading the term "tracking script" already switches off their brain. If you start with "code base specific middleware addition" or "deploy your own tracking http proxy" or something like this you only have knowledgeable techies which well, to be fair could be fair to a more specialised product.

> [...] the other as an entrepreneur.

With hat thinking for me it wouldn't make much sense to offer and maintain the service for basically free since some years already. At least I can cover the hosting costs. So yes, but also a little bit no :-)