Is it reasonable to expect Audacity developers to just ask all of their users "Hey, how are things? Are things crashing? How and why?" I'm not sure if you've ever tried to diagnose a user's crashing issues, but, especially with non-technical users, you're likely to get responses like "A dialog popped up but I closed it, I don't remember what it said", or "I wasn't doing anything and it just crashed out of nowhere".
Automatic crash reporting is like night and day; sometimes, you can even find and fix problems before your users get a chance to report the crash (if they even bother to do so, which most don't).
> If Audacity were to ask before sending data, a good chunk of people wouldn't be upset. But it doesn't, so here we are.
From the pull request: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835
> Just to reiterate, telemetry is completely optional and disabled by default. We will try to make it as clear as possible exactly what data is collected if the user chooses to opt-in and enable telemetry. We will consider adding the fine-grained controls that some of you have asked for.
In other words, Audacity is asking before sending data and people are upset regardless, apparently due to just general ignorance about the situation thanks to some people blowing it out of proportion and describing it inaccurately.
What successful ways can you envision that a software developer ought to be asking their users for their experience, when the software is available for free without restriction upon download or use?
How would you ensure that users who are satisfied with the way Audacity is working will take an equivalent amount of time to report their satisfaction as users who aren't satisfied with the way Audacity is working, so that your feedback is representative of the userbase as a whole rather than of the vocal subset that have problems? Would you advise Audacity to stop trying to measure or assess its users and their opinions, and instead simply do whatever they think is best for Audacity without harvesting user data?
If Audacity truly accepted the view that the product should never report a single byte of information back to them and that they should never attempt to collect any data whatsoever about their users, then they would be forced to make decisions about Audacity without those users' data (including their opinions!), even if those decisions could end up being disliked or contentious among a subset of the users. At that point I expect they would likely determine that product autoupdate and feature usage metrics are a valuable feature for the product and not of concern to most users, and then ship those — regardless of the cries of outrage from the subset that hold contradictory opinions — because, after all, that subset demanded not to exist to Audacity, and so their wish is fulfilled.
How can the vocal contingent of Audacity users who say "my existence should remain unknown to those who make the software I use" expect to have their opinions considered relevant, when they specifically demand not to be considered as existing at all?
All of the things you bring up are solved problems. They were solved years ago and the feedback methods continue to be used today by quality software companies. Just because Audacity and its owners choose the lazy route doesn't mean it's the only route.
Programmers and the companies they work for should stop trying to normalize telemetry. It's not normal.
Either products make decisions without telemetry, or they make decisions with telemetry. Either products make decisions without user input, or they make decisions with user input. You do not name any specific feedback methods that do work as a solution to this, and certainly I see none in use in projects such as Homebrew or Audacity that are cited as acceptable to you.
What "quality software companies" offer a feedback method that does not stir outrage among those who incorporate it into their products and/or efforts, when their feedback is not treated with priority and urgency? Every software company I've seen, small or large, has angry users who complain that their opinion has not been treated as correct by software companies, and those users congregate on forums and reiterate their pet peeves every day or week or month, in the futile hopes that this clamor will somehow influence the software company (which, generally, it does not). You do not address at all my concern about biased-towards-complaints data resulting from in-product surveys or feedback methods, and you do not explain how feedback methods unsupported by telemetry can measure the true amplitude of complaints rather than being biased by how loudly the squeaky wheels squeak.
You have failed to provide any supporting evidence for your argument that these are 'solved problems', and instead framed your unsubstantiated view as if it's fact. That isn't a viable approach at Hacker News, and I hope you'll take the time to correct it.
Different people have different needs and different levels of sensitivity to this sort of thing.
Personally, I don't want my offline audio editor talking to anything without asking. But since Audacity doesn't do that, this will be what I use instead.
If Audacity were to ask before sending data, a good chunk of people wouldn't be upset. But it doesn't, so here we are.
Also — and I've said it before — automatic "telemetry" and crash reporting is just lazy. It also lacks context. If you want to know what your users' experience is like, just ask them.