4 ms·

You are giving your behavior data for free. It's a win for the receiver, because they don't usually provide the aggregated data back. Sure, you're also getting

You are giving your behavior data for free. It's a win for the receiver, because they don't usually provide the aggregated data back. Sure, you're also getting a product for "free", but this kind of transaction (data for product) is not required in free software. The philosophy is completely different. And let's face it, the data they collect have intrinsic value in aggregate. I'm not saying they're going to use it for nefarious purposes, but it'll enrich them in a way I'm not sure is completely ethical by my standards (hoarding behavior data, surveillance). Phrased in yet another way, you're giving them an edge to transform into personal data business. This may be unanticipated, but so long as the collected data will be their private property, it's real possibility.

throwaway3699 5y ago
Even aggregated there is little monetary value beyond "people don't use this effect, let's try and ask why". Analytics doesn't answer many questions, that's true, but it does tell you where to look. It supplements talking to customers, not replacing.
captainmuon 5y ago
The deal is not that I get the product in exchange for data. The deal is that I get a better product, if everybody shares telemetry. (But in fact I don't get incremental benefit by sharing my personal telemetry.) There are several applications I use daily where I am sure they would benefit by using some kind of telemetry. We have one business application (from a big vendor) where I accidentially learned that salespeople need hours to create invoices because of a recurring crash. Finding this, then learning to reproduce, write a bug report, go back and forth, takes days, whereas this particular bug would show up easily on telemetry. An application I developed worked fine during testing but behaved strange in the factory where it was used... it turns out that while waiting the user tends to press random things on the touchscreen, and that uncovered a bug. Without proper logging this kind of thing is really difficult to catch.

throwaway3699 5y ago

Even aggregated there is little monetary value beyond "people don't use this effect, let's try and ask why". Analytics doesn't answer many questions, that's true, but it does tell you where to look. It supplements talking to customers, not replacing.

captainmuon 5y ago

The deal is not that I get the product in exchange for data. The deal is that I get a better product, if everybody shares telemetry. (But in fact I don't get incremental benefit by sharing my personal telemetry.) There are several applications I use daily where I am sure they would benefit by using some kind of telemetry. We have one business application (from a big vendor) where I accidentially learned that salespeople need hours to create invoices because of a recurring crash. Finding this, then learning to reproduce, write a bug report, go back and forth, takes days, whereas this particular bug would show up easily on telemetry. An application I developed worked fine during testing but behaved strange in the factory where it was used... it turns out that while waiting the user tends to press random things on the touchscreen, and that uncovered a bug. Without proper logging this kind of thing is really difficult to catch.