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Unfortunately that's the conclusion that most managers will draw, without asking more questions. But knowing that only 1% of users use this feature is not enou
by BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Unfortunately that's the conclusion that most managers will draw, without asking more questions.
But knowing that only 1% of users use this feature is not enough to make that decision:
- maybe 1% of your users only use it, but they are the ones that pay the most money
- or it's the most prolific users so it generates half of your content
- or it's a niche feature used by power users, but those users are the ones bringing other users, introducing you to companies and doing free support
- or it needs to be used by only 1% of the users by design, and it's enough to be useful (E.G: bug report form)
- or your report it wrong, it's one percent of all accounts, but 10% of actually active users
etc.
Most telemetry will not tell you that of course.
- soiler 4y agoWell, tracking users by cookies or fingerprinting or whatever can tell you that by combining data from different sources. Now we've looped back around to being in favor of the most intrusive methods.
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoThat's my point, if you want really useful information, you need identifiable users, and for that, you need consent. So ask for it. All data will be biased and incomplete anyway, so at least acquire it in an ethical manner.
- gcatalfamo 4y agoAs I said that is a "piece of information", not the whole story. Making an axing decision with ONLY that information would be outright idiotic. Telemetry has to be designed as well, to piece as much as you can, and then you complete the full picture with other sources. Maybe not everybody does this, but I don't think that this practice should be "shocking" for anybody.
- katbyte 4y agoyea you sound like someone who is competent and will actually thing things through and make a rational decision. Many people are not and will latch on to the information "only 1% of people use it!" and refuse to listen to why that may not matter"
- raincole 4y ago> Most telemetry will not tell you that of course. Why...? If that's the case, it sounds like the problem is too little telemetry, not too much.
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoWell, in Europe, if you want to know how much a user pays, you need to tie telemetry to their account containing personal information, which is forbidden by GPRD unless they give their explicit consent and they have a process to delete/rectify/download all of it. Since most telemetry are optout and don't bother about giving users access to their data, they can't legally do it. That's my point really: useful telemetry is really, really invasive. So just ask consent, and accept most users will tell you no. If you chose what's convenient instead, you will not only have a mixed bag of data, but also you have decide to basically force yourself on people, in an age where a part of your userbase is getting upset over things like using the wrong pronoun on them. I tell yes to Firefox and VLC to report on my usage. It tell no to Google and Microsoft. They want their cake and it it: behave badly, and then have we trust them.
- cutemonster 4y ago> give their explicit consent They already need to agree to Terms of Service when paying and starting to use the software.
- 3836293648 4y agoAnd that is not explicit consent. Explicit consent needs to be standalone and refusing it cannot stop the user from doing anything that doesn't actually really require said consent.
- JohnFen 4y agoRight. A mention in the ToS does not equal real consent. I would only add that it also has to be informed consent. Saying something like "can we collect data from you to improve our products and services?" is also not soliciting real consent, because it tells the user basically nothing about what is being asked of them and how it will be used.