If you have a problem with "telemetry" becoming a bad word among technical audiences, take it up with the developers and product managers who insist on surveilling users without opt-in, and without an option to opt-out, and who then decided to use a euphemism for this behavior: telemetry. This user-exploitative behavior is eroding any veneer of euphemism from "telemetry" and revealing the surveillance at its core. Highly technical audiences have decided to take the battle directly to the word their opponents chose.
"Surveillance" has already been thoroughly scorched by the reaction to the US government's broad violation of the Fourth Amendment. Talk to anyone in the defense industry. Now, rather than internalizing that many people don't want to be spied on, product managers are deciding to double-down on surveillance but use euphemisms. Don't whine when people respond by scorching the new word as well.
They could call it "logging" next year and we'll start tarring and feathering the word logging. The issue is not the word, but the behavior it represents.
Gathering detailed usage behavior of applications must be made optional to the user, as doing so without opt-out is decidedly hostile to the user's privacy.
You say it is impossible to get feedback from programs without a vocal minority being dominant. This is untrue on the surface since providing the option to disable telemetry removes a minority of users, probably a set highly correlated with the vocal minority you are concerned about. So if they have something to let you know, they'll probably contact you directly—the old fashioned way.
As others have pointed out, there's also no compelling evidence that software is better since the advent of widespread telemetry. Telemetry so often lacks context. You don't know what the user was trying to do; only what they did. Just because a feature is used a lot, that doesn't mean it's a good feature. It's merely what users have found in your software that approximately does what they intended. What's unseen, what can't be seen, is intent. You can't (yet, thankfully) measure the reluctance or happiness of the user as they pressed the button.
Even when working ideally, and observing willing users, telemetry has a nasty habit of navigating products to local maxima at the expense more quickly finding significantly better options.
"Surveillance" has already been thoroughly scorched by the reaction to the US government's broad violation of the Fourth Amendment. Talk to anyone in the defense industry. Now, rather than internalizing that many people don't want to be spied on, product managers are deciding to double-down on surveillance but use euphemisms. Don't whine when people respond by scorching the new word as well.
They could call it "logging" next year and we'll start tarring and feathering the word logging. The issue is not the word, but the behavior it represents.
Gathering detailed usage behavior of applications must be made optional to the user, as doing so without opt-out is decidedly hostile to the user's privacy.
You say it is impossible to get feedback from programs without a vocal minority being dominant. This is untrue on the surface since providing the option to disable telemetry removes a minority of users, probably a set highly correlated with the vocal minority you are concerned about. So if they have something to let you know, they'll probably contact you directly—the old fashioned way.
As others have pointed out, there's also no compelling evidence that software is better since the advent of widespread telemetry. Telemetry so often lacks context. You don't know what the user was trying to do; only what they did. Just because a feature is used a lot, that doesn't mean it's a good feature. It's merely what users have found in your software that approximately does what they intended. What's unseen, what can't be seen, is intent. You can't (yet, thankfully) measure the reluctance or happiness of the user as they pressed the button.
Even when working ideally, and observing willing users, telemetry has a nasty habit of navigating products to local maxima at the expense more quickly finding significantly better options.