The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users don't change defaults, and the 5% who do are your power users. They're not representative of the average user. And only a subset of them will turn it on

Ironically enough the opposite happens with opt-out telemetry, for the same reason: a lot of power users will turn off telemetry, thus you will never see their usage patterns and will have to infer them. Dogfooding helps.

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crazygringo 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm confused.

You claim power users opt in to telemetry, and then immediately say power users opt out.

	▲	jorvi 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A subset of power users want to their usage to be profiled (me, if I trust the company. Brave, Mozilla, Mullvad, 1Password, Bitwarden, Valve, companies like that). But most power users will not want that because of privacy worries. From that you get two situations. Opt-in: - Regular users: click all 'ok' through setup at lightning speed, no telemetry enabled. - Most power users: consciously don't check the box to opt-in because of privacy worries. - Big picture power users: consciously check the opt-in box given they trust you (because they want their usage patterns to be profiled and optimized for). Opt-out: - Regular users: click all 'ok' through setup at lightning speed, telemetry enabled. - Most power users: consciously check the box to opt-out because of privacy worries. - Big picture power users: consciously don't check the opt-out box given they trust you (because they want their usage patterns to be profiled and optimized for).
	▲	awwaiid 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		power users opt in to opt in telemetry, and power users opt out of opt out telemetry. Power users click all the buttons.

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pnw_throwaway 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users are sick and tired of being spied on with every little thing they do.

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eddyg 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Telemetry (if it’s truly telemetry) is nowhere close to “tracking”. People conflate the two all the time. One can provide useful, anonymous metrics (e.g. “user enabled feature X”) without doing anything but incrementing the counter for “feature X”.

The “Firefox Problem” is that all the power users disable telemetry, so all the “cool” features that power users like (but never get used by “regular people”) get ignored or removed instead of improved because, according to the metrics, “nobody uses them”.

	▲	hilariously 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The user doesn't conflate the two, the developers do, and that's why we turn off telemetry, because its damn close to tracking. Knowing what (vulnerable) version of software a user is using transmitted in the clear was absolutely a part of the NSA monitoring error information from windows crash logs https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/08/nsa_collects_... - so forgive me if I do not trust the developer to know what makes me unsafe or not. If you enable telemetry by default I will do my best to never use your product.

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jorvi 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If they really were they would turn it off. And stop using Gmail and Android.

The overwhelming majority of people don't care about digital privacy because the cost is opaque to them.

Also, telemetry when done right isn't "spying". Again, it is anonymized and used to see, for example, where the hot paths and paper cuts in applications are.

	▲	hilariously 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		And how would I know if you did it right or not?

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dewey 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As you can see with TikTok / Instagram usage…regular people who are not on HN could not care less about that.

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jonhohle 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If Charmin put sensors in toilet paper rolls to optimize the wiping experience, it would be dystopian. Why do we give software a pass? Privacy is a right not a telemetry problem and opt-out by default is non-consensual surveillance.