Macro-ecology and conservation biology now include “macro-genetic” studies that repurpose genetic data from public databases (e.g. Manel et al. 2020) to explore patterns and drivers of intraspecific genetic diversity (IGD) for multiple taxa across large spatial and/or temporal scales (Blanchet et al. 2017). The macro-genetic study by Millette et al. (2020) sought to elucidate relationships between human population density and recent land-use change on animal IGD, but we explain here that technical limitations of the approach may prevent the detection of anthropogenic effects on IGD. Although the authors acknowledged several constraints, and presented their results with more nuance than previous macro-genetic studies (e.g. Miraldo et al. 2016), issues remain that cannot be resolved or adequately addressed by tempering the interpretation.