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Opt-out telemetry is unacceptable, this also signals that the product team has no vision and the organization is riddled with bureaucracy. Great products get b

Opt-out telemetry is unacceptable, this also signals that the product team has no vision and the organization is riddled with bureaucracy. Great products get built by someone with a vision to create them, mediocre products gets created by product managers justifying their positions with data they've gleaned by spying on users.

ninkendo 3y ago
100% agreement from me. People have trouble believing this, but software existed before telemetry existed. We didn’t have trouble understanding where user pain points were back then, because we actually performed user studies, and offered the ability for users to provide feedback if they wanted to. The field of UX wasn’t born the moment someone wrote the first telemetry library.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > We didn’t have trouble understanding where user pain points were back then If anything, people seem to have much more difficulty understanding user pain points right now.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    Because of telemetry we know what brings in the most money. So while telemetry might show that moving an item from one group to another (just making something up) takes > 1s, fixing this will not bring in $. So when we then do Sprint Planning all of that gets pushed to the ice box.
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      This already starts from a big mistake, because telemetry can't tell you the value of any work you haven't done yet. The question whether it can tell you the value of anything at all is a hard one that needs plenty of context, and nobody seems interested on answering. But your reasoning doesn't need this answer.
      - firstbabylonian 3y ago
        > telemetry can't tell you the value of any work you haven't done yet But it can allow you to extrapolate from the value of things already done and usage patterns around them?
  - smolder 3y ago
    It's also often the case that they understand a user pain point but don't fix it because they put it there with intent and purpose.
- abigail95 3y ago
  Because before js became popular, every web app had access to every single event execpt what, scroll and mouse position. Telemetry has been the default for networked applications since longer than I've been alive. Think of a terminal connecting to a mainframe, how much telemetry it has access to, all of it, of course.
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    > Because before js became popular, every web app had access to every single event execpt what, scroll and mouse position. Huh? No, they had access to basically nothing unless the user did something that triggered a network request. What did you type in that form, but delete before submitting? No visibility. Which parts of the page did you linger on the longest? Which parts of the text did you highlight? No visibility. They could see when you requested/submitted stuff, but that was about it. Pages couldn't sit there looking over your shoulder while you were using the page.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      > What did you type in that form, but delete before submitting? No visibility. Well maybe I deleted it because I thought twice about what I wanted to send you.
      - yamtaddle 3y ago
        Yes—to be clear, that's a good thing, and the direction modern software has gone is incredibly gross, to put it mildly.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  I was genuinely shocked at how fast this crap was normalized. This was unequivocally not fucking OK unless you were some shady-ass malware vendor, not even that long ago. Then, in a span of seemingly a handful of years, it became normal and everyone was doing it and they all act confused when we say it's very, super, extremely, not even close to OK.
  - npteljes 3y ago
    Similarly with "not giving out real info on the internet". And nowadays you have to send a photo of your ID if Facebook thinks your name is not valid.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Of course it existed. It's just a lot cheaper with telemetry. This is why companies like Microsoft cram it down our throats.
mywacaday 3y ago
Its a world of diminishing returns still looking for that 100x payday. A product is no longer a product once the end user becomes part of that product. It makes me sad and long for the days when I was excited to see what amazing new software was being posted every day to HN, can't remember the last time I went wow.
PaulKeeble 3y ago
Another company having no issue with blatant and in the open breach of GDPR by refusing to comply with the required default of rejection.
- V__ 3y ago
  If the telemetry is anonymized and no personal data is transmitted, then there is no breach of GDPR: > This data will be gathered from a randomized selection of accounts, de-identified, and processed in aggregate
bwoodruff 3y ago
I wrote more about the consent aspect here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35706897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35706897 tl;dr If we roll this out to customers, we'll be asking for consent, and won't be collecting telemetry data unless we have it. -Ben, 1Password

ninkendo 3y ago

100% agreement from me. People have trouble believing this, but software existed before telemetry existed. We didn’t have trouble understanding where user pain points were back then, because we actually performed user studies, and offered the ability for users to provide feedback if they wanted to. The field of UX wasn’t born the moment someone wrote the first telemetry library.

marcosdumay 3y ago
> We didn’t have trouble understanding where user pain points were back then If anything, people seem to have much more difficulty understanding user pain points right now.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Because of telemetry we know what brings in the most money. So while telemetry might show that moving an item from one group to another (just making something up) takes > 1s, fixing this will not bring in $. So when we then do Sprint Planning all of that gets pushed to the ice box.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    This already starts from a big mistake, because telemetry can't tell you the value of any work you haven't done yet. The question whether it can tell you the value of anything at all is a hard one that needs plenty of context, and nobody seems interested on answering. But your reasoning doesn't need this answer.
    - firstbabylonian 3y ago
      > telemetry can't tell you the value of any work you haven't done yet But it can allow you to extrapolate from the value of things already done and usage patterns around them?
- smolder 3y ago
  It's also often the case that they understand a user pain point but don't fix it because they put it there with intent and purpose.
abigail95 3y ago
Because before js became popular, every web app had access to every single event execpt what, scroll and mouse position. Telemetry has been the default for networked applications since longer than I've been alive. Think of a terminal connecting to a mainframe, how much telemetry it has access to, all of it, of course.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  > Because before js became popular, every web app had access to every single event execpt what, scroll and mouse position. Huh? No, they had access to basically nothing unless the user did something that triggered a network request. What did you type in that form, but delete before submitting? No visibility. Which parts of the page did you linger on the longest? Which parts of the text did you highlight? No visibility. They could see when you requested/submitted stuff, but that was about it. Pages couldn't sit there looking over your shoulder while you were using the page.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    > What did you type in that form, but delete before submitting? No visibility. Well maybe I deleted it because I thought twice about what I wanted to send you.
    - yamtaddle 3y ago
      Yes—to be clear, that's a good thing, and the direction modern software has gone is incredibly gross, to put it mildly.
yamtaddle 3y ago
I was genuinely shocked at how fast this crap was normalized. This was unequivocally not fucking OK unless you were some shady-ass malware vendor, not even that long ago. Then, in a span of seemingly a handful of years, it became normal and everyone was doing it and they all act confused when we say it's very, super, extremely, not even close to OK.
- npteljes 3y ago
  Similarly with "not giving out real info on the internet". And nowadays you have to send a photo of your ID if Facebook thinks your name is not valid.
wkat4242 3y ago
Of course it existed. It's just a lot cheaper with telemetry. This is why companies like Microsoft cram it down our throats.

mywacaday 3y ago

Its a world of diminishing returns still looking for that 100x payday. A product is no longer a product once the end user becomes part of that product. It makes me sad and long for the days when I was excited to see what amazing new software was being posted every day to HN, can't remember the last time I went wow.

PaulKeeble 3y ago

Another company having no issue with blatant and in the open breach of GDPR by refusing to comply with the required default of rejection.

V__ 3y ago
If the telemetry is anonymized and no personal data is transmitted, then there is no breach of GDPR: > This data will be gathered from a randomized selection of accounts, de-identified, and processed in aggregate

bwoodruff 3y ago

I wrote more about the consent aspect here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35706897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35706897 tl;dr If we roll this out to customers, we'll be asking for consent, and won't be collecting telemetry data unless we have it. -Ben, 1Password