Good for GitHub. All companies need this. Some use it to improve products, some use it for less commendable goals. I know HN crowd is allergic to telemetry but if you've ever developed a software as a service, telemetry is indispensable.
That doesn't mean it doesn't have usage patterns or other things telemetry would be useful for. And, at the rate these tools are being updated (multiple times a week, multiple times a day in some cases), they practically _are_ SaaS.
Talking is a must. But just like quantum particles, users behave and talk very differently. Just look at gamers - most of them say they _hate_ AI in games, yet they are actively behaving differently, buying games made with AI, using AI, etc.
It’s okay if I spy on you without your consent, it’s for your own good. Or my own good. Something like that, is that your point? The ends justify the means? How about respect as a feature, that one you don’t need telemetry to determine.
Thinking out loud: what are the best practices to vet a tools' telemetry details? The devil is in the details.
A quick summary of my Claude-assisted research at the Gist below. Top of mind is some kind of trusted intermediary service with a vested interest in striking a definable middle ground that is good enough for both sides (users and product-builders)
I appreciate the "please", but this comes across as presumptive. First, you don't know the effort level I put in. Second, you haven't seen the end result. Third, why do you think I would "blindly paste" from an LLM? If you take a look at my profile or other comments, I hope that is clear.
I appreciate feedback in general, and I am glad when people care about making HN a nice place for discussion and community. Sometimes a well-meaning person goes a little too far, and I think it happened above. That's my charitable interpretation. It is also possible that in this age of AI, people are understandably pissed and sending that frustration out into the world. When that happens, just remember the people reading it matter too.
About me: I would not share something unless I think it has value to at least one other person on HN. I've done a lot of work about data and privacy in general (having worked at a differential privacy startup in the past), but I'm much newer to the idea of digging into ways of making telemetry gathering more transparent. I haven't found great resources on the Web about this yet, which is why I started doing the research. And I'm going to share it for others to read, criticize, build on top of, etc.
