3 ms·

I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. If I’m using windows terminal, I want them

by judge2020 5y ago

I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. If I’m using windows terminal, I want them to know how often I use the hot keys, how often I split a terminal vertically then horizontally (alt-shift-d), etc. lest it be removed, since I know they don’t have infinite resources to dedicate to this single project to maintain every feature forever and ever.

JadeNB 5y ago
> I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. If I’m using windows terminal, I want them to know how often I use the hot keys, how often I split a terminal vertically then horizontally (alt-shift-d), etc. lest it be removed, since I know they don’t have infinite resources to dedicate to this single project to maintain every feature forever and ever. The makers of an app are entitled to no more information about me and my use of it than I allow them to have. I think that it's reasonable to argue whether my allowance of sharing should be opt-in or opt-out, but I don't think that there is much scope for argument about whether I should be able to block the sharing of information if I choose explicitly to do so. (One could argue that, as long as everything is disclosed up front, then the makers of an app have the right to demand whatever they want, and I have the right to accept their demands or else not to use their software. This is surely true in one sense; but, in another sense, it's exactly what the notion of "contract of adhesion" is meant to describe, and in many other contexts it's recognised as not a good thing.) To the argument that the makers of app can use telemetry information to make their app better, I would say that that is doubtless true; but I would argue that is also true that I, and not they, have the right to decide where the boundary lies between my desire for privacy and their desire to improve their app. For example, perhaps—even likely—browser makers could make their browsers better if they knew exactly what sites I visited, but, if I found my browser reporting my history information back to Mozilla, then I would not say "ah well, as long as it makes for a better browser."
userbinator 4y ago
I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. They are entitled to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING beyond, if it is commercial software, my payment. I want them to know What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!? Oh, that's right, they didn't want to listen because they'd rather take complete control of your machine, forcing you into what they want, and monetising every last aspect of "your" life, all the while hiding behind the excuse of "the data says" to do what they want. The amount of pro-spyware comments here is, quite frankly, excruciatingly abhorrent. So many comments here smell strongly of corporate propaganda, since they also always repeat the same tired talking points --- and it makes me wonder how much shillage MS does. Or how many others think that because MS is big and "successful", they should emulate the increasingly abusive behaviour that it (and to be fair, the rest of Big Tech) engages in.
- judge2020 4y ago
  > What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!? People don't say anything. They use the software, and then when features are deprecated they come screaming for you to continue supporting it. It's a waste of resources if they have to create an 'RFC' for every time they want to deprecate a feature due to development workload, when they could just have it report usage of features within the app. It's literally just how many people use specific features in the code they're writing; they're not watching what you type, they're not uploading a log of window titles like early blizzard anticheat software[0]. If you don't want them to be able to make informed decisions about the software they write you shouldn't use it, just create your own and send out a yearly/quarterly survey asking people to tell you what features they use, and see just how many people respond (hint: 30% of users is an unlikely best case scenario for external surveys[1]); hopefully that sample is good enough to drive decision on what features you stop supporting and what features to focus on. 0: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spyware https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spy... 1: https://peoplepulse.com/resources/useful-articles/survey-response-rates/#:~:text=Customer%20satisfaction%20surveys%20and%20market%20research%20surveys%20often%20have%20response%20rates%20in%20the%2010%25%20%E2%80%93%2030%25%20range https://peoplepulse.com/resources/useful-articles/survey-res....
  - JadeNB 4y ago
    > It's literally just how many people use specific features in the code they're writing; they're not watching what you type, they're not uploading a log of window titles like early blizzard anticheat software[0]. The problem is that, if it's not that now, it will, or at least might, be that eventually. It's a lot easier to make sure that an app isn't phoning home at all, than that it's phoning home with only approved information. For example, it's a huge problem with browser extensions that, even if they start off well designed to respect a user's privacy and to gather information only in ways that are essential to their function, and that even if the original developer remains true to that mission, still if the extension becomes popular the developer will be prey to a lot of pressure from bad actors who want to buy the rights to the extension precisely so that they can expand the data-gathering into the realm that you implicitly acknowledge is unacceptable.
digisign 4y ago
Entitled to potentially sensitive information without asking?

JadeNB 5y ago

> I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. If I’m using windows terminal, I want them to know how often I use the hot keys, how often I split a terminal vertically then horizontally (alt-shift-d), etc. lest it be removed, since I know they don’t have infinite resources to dedicate to this single project to maintain every feature forever and ever. The makers of an app are entitled to no more information about me and my use of it than I allow them to have. I think that it's reasonable to argue whether my allowance of sharing should be opt-in or opt-out, but I don't think that there is much scope for argument about whether I should be able to block the sharing of information if I choose explicitly to do so. (One could argue that, as long as everything is disclosed up front, then the makers of an app have the right to demand whatever they want, and I have the right to accept their demands or else not to use their software. This is surely true in one sense; but, in another sense, it's exactly what the notion of "contract of adhesion" is meant to describe, and in many other contexts it's recognised as not a good thing.) To the argument that the makers of app can use telemetry information to make their app better, I would say that that is doubtless true; but I would argue that is also true that I, and not they, have the right to decide where the boundary lies between my desire for privacy and their desire to improve their app. For example, perhaps—even likely—browser makers could make their browsers better if they knew exactly what sites I visited, but, if I found my browser reporting my history information back to Mozilla, then I would not say "ah well, as long as it makes for a better browser."

userbinator 4y ago

I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. They are entitled to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING beyond, if it is commercial software, my payment. I want them to know What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!? Oh, that's right, they didn't want to listen because they'd rather take complete control of your machine, forcing you into what they want, and monetising every last aspect of "your" life, all the while hiding behind the excuse of "the data says" to do what they want. The amount of pro-spyware comments here is, quite frankly, excruciatingly abhorrent. So many comments here smell strongly of corporate propaganda, since they also always repeat the same tired talking points --- and it makes me wonder how much shillage MS does. Or how many others think that because MS is big and "successful", they should emulate the increasingly abusive behaviour that it (and to be fair, the rest of Big Tech) engages in.

judge2020 4y ago
> What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!? People don't say anything. They use the software, and then when features are deprecated they come screaming for you to continue supporting it. It's a waste of resources if they have to create an 'RFC' for every time they want to deprecate a feature due to development workload, when they could just have it report usage of features within the app. It's literally just how many people use specific features in the code they're writing; they're not watching what you type, they're not uploading a log of window titles like early blizzard anticheat software[0]. If you don't want them to be able to make informed decisions about the software they write you shouldn't use it, just create your own and send out a yearly/quarterly survey asking people to tell you what features they use, and see just how many people respond (hint: 30% of users is an unlikely best case scenario for external surveys[1]); hopefully that sample is good enough to drive decision on what features you stop supporting and what features to focus on. 0: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spyware https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spy... 1: https://peoplepulse.com/resources/useful-articles/survey-response-rates/#:~:text=Customer%20satisfaction%20surveys%20and%20market%20research%20surveys%20often%20have%20response%20rates%20in%20the%2010%25%20%E2%80%93%2030%25%20range https://peoplepulse.com/resources/useful-articles/survey-res....
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > It's literally just how many people use specific features in the code they're writing; they're not watching what you type, they're not uploading a log of window titles like early blizzard anticheat software[0]. The problem is that, if it's not that now, it will, or at least might, be that eventually. It's a lot easier to make sure that an app isn't phoning home at all, than that it's phoning home with only approved information. For example, it's a huge problem with browser extensions that, even if they start off well designed to respect a user's privacy and to gather information only in ways that are essential to their function, and that even if the original developer remains true to that mission, still if the extension becomes popular the developer will be prey to a lot of pressure from bad actors who want to buy the rights to the extension precisely so that they can expand the data-gathering into the realm that you implicitly acknowledge is unacceptable.

digisign 4y ago

Entitled to potentially sensitive information without asking?