This article misses one crucial point in suggesting Looker over "a patchwork of custom scripts and APIs". The complexity doesn't go away because you offload it to Looker. When Looker goes down, your application is still in trouble. It's still your responsibility when your system goes down, even if you can point the finger at some third party service. Your system is still down! That being said, don't use Looker in the first place. Do not spy on people.