I'm doing probably the umpteenth repost of this article here because I wonder to what extent it's still good advice. In particular, if I engage directly with us

I'm doing probably the umpteenth repost of this article here because I wonder to what extent it's still good advice. In particular, if I engage directly with users, e.g. by contacting them about a problem they're having with my product, will I creep them out, and possibly lose a sale, by letting them know that I'm watching them? Has sensitivity to privacy invasions gone up enough that we have to be more careful now about doing things that don't scale?