I'm not saying that I'm entitled to an exception (and do use desktop Linux and macOS in any situation that allows me such a choice, gaming and Office usage being my primary barriers - and I'll leave aside whatever Apple may be doing with my usage statistics there, which probabally isn't great).

Rather, the comment that I'm replying to infers that there is nothing wrong with what Microsoft is doing because they are using all of this data for some sort of Good Reason, and I personally think that their methods of data collection are shady enough to make whatever good they may be doing with that data irrelevant.

My guess is you disagree with the notion that it's a legitimate role of government to set and enforce standards for various market products. That's fine, but if you truly don't understand why someone might hold that position (distinct from agreeing with it) then frankly the kind of reading you need to do to gain that understanding isn't likely to materialize in response to barbed comments on Internet message boards.