Yes, we spent money and engineering time setting up a "data layer" for Google Analytics, though it was mainly to ensure continuity with existing reporting on co

Yes, we spent money and engineering time setting up a "data layer" for Google Analytics, though it was mainly to ensure continuity with existing reporting on core site metrics. That said, most routine data collection in our org isn't from custom instrumentation requiring engineering lift. It happens when someone sets up their own event in Google Analytics or adds a new field in Salesforce or whatever. This kind of bloat is inevitable, and at my scale (which is pretty big but not like F500 big), with my stack, it's always going to be cheaper to just ingest everything than to spend labor on trying to manage and minimize it, especially when I can ingest a lot of stuff for cheap or free and then discard what I don't need.