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> Making something like this opt-in is equivalent to not having it at all. Microsoft were doing opt-in telemetry in Office, Visual Studio and the .NET framewor
by ptx 8y ago
> Making something like this opt-in is equivalent to not having it at all.
Microsoft were doing opt-in telemetry in Office, Visual Studio and the .NET framework for a long time, so it must have provided value for them. The installer used to politely ask you to consider opting in to help improve the product.
JetBrains products still follow this approach of respecting the customer and asking politely.
- derefr 8y agoSoftware that actively nags you at every opportunity to opt in isn’t really “opt-in” per se. There’s a third kind of system for polling preferences, which I’ll call “opt-forced” for lack of a better make: it’s where you are required at some point to decide whether to opt in or opt out, and neither option is the default. (Picture two radio buttons, neither selected, and you can’t proceed until you click one.) Nagging opt-in is a lot closer to opt-forced—you’re required to either press “OK” or “Cancel” to the opt-in dialog box. Except, since it just keeps asking whenever you “opt out”, you haven’t really opted out at all. Thus, this dark pattern is actually closer to the “opt-out” side of the fence, in terms of the number of people who end up in the program even though they’d actively prefer not to be (but this preference is weaker than their preference to stop being nagged.)