This is AFTER debloating all the MS bs as much as I can.
The amount of MS telemetry is just mindboggling.
As a programmer: “your data is boring. I am not interested in leveraging this for anything besides getting the service you are using to work as well as possible”
Also me as a programmer: “yo, you don’t need that data, stop asking for it. Ohh, your app is broken because it can’t access permissions? Yeet.”
It’s not about the programmers. It’s about the company and the ability to make money off of data they get from you. You should be the one who gets money for your data. Not Microsoft, not Google etc.
Is Microsoft making money off of this particular telemetry data? Maybe not. It should always be opt-in
My company collects a ton of data, but it doesn’t leave our servers. We use it purely to drive internal decisions based on how people actually use the software
My problems with telemetry:
Scope: if you provide a service which is a “wrapper” for doing other things, I do not want you to collect usage data. Example: an entire fucking operating system
Opt-out by default (or completely unable to turn it off) even if the service or software I’m using is paid: I want to have the ability to say no. Communicate properly what you collect when I get access to the service, allow me to say no and don’t hide it in 300 pages long TOSes. I don’t want to become your free UX tester when I already pay for the service.
Telemetry-driven development: I absolutely hate this both as a user and a developer. We see there are thousands of users using a feature, but it’s a low % in general, so lead decides we need to remove it from our product. I know that those x thousand people will be annoyed, and so am I when I’m on the receiving end of this.
Another reason that is not universal but service specific is making decisions that purposefully keep you on the platform, over optimizing the interface for maximizing profit.
