Not a browser dev, but not long ago I spotted a discussion of Chrome potentially deprecating/removing a rarely used XML API. The discussion was halted when a sudden spike in usage (IIRC, from well below 0.1% of whatever the metric to just slightly over 0.1%) was noticed. I have strong reason to believe I contributed to the spike (I was prototyping a change that hit it rapidly in the same time period), and I have strong reason to believe this particular API was preserved because telemetry was in place where a more conventional outcry would’ve been needed to otherwise stop the change (ahem alert ahem). But there wouldn’t be an outcry, the API is long standardized but basically unused outside of very odd corners of the web that aren’t very web centric.
I don’t want browsers or tools to undermine the trust of their users by quietly tracking unknown things. But I agree collecting usage data matters in ways that aren’t always appreciated.
I don’t know how to do it transparently and preserve/establish trust. But I think the instinct to distrust any metric collection probably isn’t the right balance to strike.
FWIW, the one feature that I had removed because nobody used it was the yellow bar in the bottom "Add-on foo is slowing down your Firefox, do you want to disable it?", so nothing quite standard :)
I don’t want browsers or tools to undermine the trust of their users by quietly tracking unknown things. But I agree collecting usage data matters in ways that aren’t always appreciated.
I don’t know how to do it transparently and preserve/establish trust. But I think the instinct to distrust any metric collection probably isn’t the right balance to strike.