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Yet organizations went decades making fantastic and ever-improving software without telemetry. What changed? Why would telemetry suddenly become a basic require
by TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
Yet organizations went decades making fantastic and ever-improving software without telemetry. What changed? Why would telemetry suddenly become a basic requirement for improvement?
- SquareWheel 9y agoAnd another thing -- what's the deal with automobiles? Horses do a perfectly fine job at getting us around.
- stonogo 9y agoShitty analogy. Cars provided demonstrable benefits to users. Telemetry does not.
- zachlatta 9y agoI have worked on products and have made changes based on data I got on how users were using them. Telemetry doesn't replace user feedback or interviews, but it really does help.
- Feniks 9y agoSome of us are assholes though and don't really care about helping you out with making money. No offense intended.
- dreae 9y agoThat's just stupid. Obviously the product has some value for you or you wouldn't be using it, and telemetry is a practically zero effort way for you to help improve it. Note, when we're talking about telemetry we're not talking about tracking your time on a site to show you ads, we're talking about tacking bugs you encounter so they can be fixed.
- geezerjay 9y agoI don't believe your personal convenience trumps everyone's right to privacy.
- SquareWheel 9y agoA crash log doesn't violate your privacy, nor does usage statistics when properly anonymized. Sometimes telemetry is just telemetry.
- geezerjay 9y ago> A crash log doesn't violate your privacy Says who? If that's the case then ask the user to email you the log. Instead, we get covert eavesdropping.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- philipwhiuk 9y agoProperly anonymised doesn't exist. Every mechanism has been broken.
- SquareWheel 9y agoJust because it's not obvious to the user, doesn't mean it's not going towards bug fixes and other improvements.
- megablast 9y agoSure. Over 1 million deaths a year. Cars are a great idea.
- oatmealsnap 9y agoSoftware is generally a lot more complex these days, and telemetry data is needed to stay competitive and keep improving. Using Firefox as an example, look at how many improvements they have made over the last 5 years. I'm not here to argue whether we need these feature or if Firefox 2 was the last version of Firefox that we needed. Firefox (or Chrome, or whatever) wouldn't look as great as it does today without lots of data.
- dingaling 9y agoOn the other hand Mozilla has frequently quoted telemetry as the reason for removing niche or power-user features, for example Tab Groups and Themes. "Low usage" in both cases. So telemetry doesn't always improve the user experience.
- thatcat 9y agoPower users disable telemetry.
- geezerjay 9y ago> Software is generally a lot more complex these days, and telemetry data is needed to stay competitive and keep improving. If violating user's privacy is your way to stay competitive, then that's your personal problem. You have no right to spy on everyone just because you have problems staying relevant.
- girvo 9y agoI don’t know — my Pentium used to run software that crashed constantly, corrupted files, and was in hindsight horrendously insecure. I don’t think there’s ever been a time where software quality was magically excellent?