A Critical View on GA4: What Became Harder After Universal Analytics

Google Analytics 4 is clearly more modern, but that does not automatically mean it is more practical for everyone. For many businesses, marketers, and site owners, the move from Universal Analytics does not feel like a pure improvement, but like a tradeoff that removes some very useful conveniences and replaces them with more complexity.

The problem is not that GA4 lacks features. The problem is that some older, more intuitive ways of working were removed. That is exactly why a critical view of GA4 is completely reasonable.

1. The loss of Views is a real downside

In Universal Analytics, Views made it much easier to separate different layers of reporting: raw view, filtered view, reporting view, and other practical structures. That was convenient, logical, and easy to explain even to non-technical people.

In GA4 that layer is gone. For many users this makes reporting less comfortable and less transparent. Yes, the platform is more flexible in other ways, but the loss of that clean reporting structure is a real tradeoff.

• harder separation of reporting perspectives
• less intuitive reporting setup
• loss of a very practical data-management layer

2. Removing Goals makes part of the setup more abstract

Goals were simple. For many people they were the natural way to think about a lead form, purchase, inquiry, or another core business action. In GA4 this is replaced by marking events as conversions.

Conceptually that may be more flexible, but in day-to-day work it is often less clear. More flexibility does not always mean better usability.

• less intuitive language for many users
• higher chance of setup confusion
• more event logic where there used to be a simpler mental model

3. More possibilities, but also more complexity

GA4 is often sold as stronger because it is more flexible, more event-based, and more behavioural. That may be true in theory, but in practice many users simply experience it as heavier, less intuitive, and more tiring to work with day after day.

Part of the old, practically useful comfort has been replaced with more abstraction. Instead of clearer work, many users get more naming conventions, more event logic, more setup decisions, and more time lost trying to find where the useful picture actually is.

In other words: GA4 does not merely require adaptation. For many people it makes analysis slower, more cumbersome, and less natural. That is not a small downside. It is a real operational weakness.

• more complexity where there used to be a more natural flow
• slower orientation inside the platform
• more setup time and less real analysis time

4. Automatic event tracking does not always create clarity

Automatic event tracking is convenient, but it can also create noise. If the account is not structured well, the result becomes more data without more meaning.

That is one of GA4’s quieter weaknesses: it can create the feeling of “a lot of data and not enough clarity” when there is not enough structure behind the setup.

• more event noise
• higher risk of chaotic setup
• harder separation of useful signals from clutter

That is why dual tracking remains a sensible transition move

There is no need to rush and accept GA4 as automatically better from day one. For many businesses the wiser approach is to keep Universal Analytics and GA4 in parallel for a while, while learning the new terminology and model.

This gives you time to collect new data, adapt to the platform, and decide where GA4 truly helps and where it simply feels more complex than before.