Others have already pointed out this is an exaggeration but still, there is truth to it. I wonder how the field of software development has changed so radicall

Others have already pointed out this is an exaggeration but still, there is truth to it. I wonder how the field of software development has changed so radically that this is somehow considered acceptable and even perhaps normal? Back in the 90s to mid 00s even, it was considered a clear violation of user expectations and not even remotely acceptable. Back then at Sun it was a big rule to never initiate such opaque network activity that wasn't directly related to user action and the purpose of the code. Requesting exceptions to that would have to be escalated pretty high up and generally rejected. It was something you Just Don't Do. Even running half a dozen machines at home, my networks connection was entirely silent except for the occasional NTP packets, unless I was actively doing some user-initiated network activity. These days, well, the outgoing pipe is always active even when no machine is doing anything. Most of that traffic is just variants of spyware, reporting back to HQ on what the user is doing at all times. This should not be considered normal and its on us as the software industry to try to claw back on this problem.