If that worked, why would anyone give up their business to VCs ever? Having VCs is not a fun place to be. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in (unless you are the VC, I suppose).
There was a time where you could rely on word-of-mouth, but those days are behind us. Everyone and their brother is vying for word-of-mouth attention nowadays. The noise is too great. It takes vast resources to emit a usable signal.
1. Some businesses can't just be built from nothing-but-software-and-server. You need warehouses, logistics, and all sorts of other fixed costs that exist before you can start recouping your investment. Not everyone has the money to start such a business, despite otherwise having the ability.
2. People aren't entirely stupid. If something's a scam, con, or otherwise a detriment to human flourishing, they're not going to use it unless they have reason to doubt their assessment. Advertising is good at getting people to associate thing with sentiment, which can override their bullshit detectors.
Something that's genuinely-useful, and genuinely-better, can spread without any advertising spending, once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates. (For example, Plausible Analytics: I poked around their demo, concluded that it was strictly better than Google Analytics, and (after a couple of chats with one of the founders) started telling everyone with a website about it. I was clearly not the only one.)
I have no idea why anyone would give up their business to VCs if they don't need investment to kick it off, and aren't running a long con.
That type of business is rarely appealing to VCs. VCs seek rapid growth and quick exits. Warehouses are the antithesis of that. Hard to scale and even harder to sell. It is an investible business for the right type of investor, but VCs and investors are not synonymous.
> once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates.
You are technically correct here, but we're clearly talking about the stage before you've already overcome the noise floor.
> Plausible Analytics
They claim to be self-funded — in other words, acting as their own VCs. Which is all well and good when you're already rich, but if you're already rich (and not looking to get richer) why not just hire a concierge/matchmaker? What do you need a poor man's app for?
There are plenty of logistical barriers other than access to money, that prevent people from starting businesses. All these barriers can be overcome by being rich, but that's not the only way they can be overcome. Collectively, we can call these ways-to-overcome-barriers "privilege" (to crib from the language of academic feminism).
You do if you want to transcend beyond the noise. Which you claim said business has. I'll take your word for it. It isn't technology that makes a technology company. Technology is easy. The hard part is getting to know the world. That's what takes tremendous resources nowadays (as before, it wasn't always so hard, but unless you have a time machine...).
Umami's homepage requires JavaScript to load, which is a red flag. And, as expected, there's something wrong: it's owned by a US company, which makes it a no-go.
Matomo is excellent and I second your recommendation.