Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole.
Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that would opt-in are probably not a good sample of "typical users".
Opt-out - no matter what safeguards or assurances I could provide is unacceptable to a subset of users and they will forcefully communicate this to you.
Don't get me wrong - I understand both the ease at which bad actors abuse telemetry and the ease in which "anonymous data" can prove to be nothing of the kind in a multitude of surprising ways.
But it's hard not to feel a little sad in a "this is why we can't have nice things" kind of way.
Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that would opt-in are probably not a good sample of "typical users".
Opt-out - no matter what safeguards or assurances I could provide is unacceptable to a subset of users and they will forcefully communicate this to you.
Don't get me wrong - I understand both the ease at which bad actors abuse telemetry and the ease in which "anonymous data" can prove to be nothing of the kind in a multitude of surprising ways.
But it's hard not to feel a little sad in a "this is why we can't have nice things" kind of way.