[thetmkay]

Why does it have to be fear, rather than preference?

Maybe there's no data you're afraid of leaking, but you would prefer never to leak that data. It's a consumer choice - the problem here is lack of transparency/information to the consumer.

The cultural standard is what we accept to be appropriate - do we want to accept a cultural standard of everything you use is tracked and logged by default?

[victorhooi]

If that's your preference, then you are free to not use those webapps, or mobile apps - why would yo use Gmail, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook, if you were worried about your data being held by a third party?

We shouldn't automatically assume people are stupid, or that they are being "duped".

There are numerous advantages to using a cloud-hosted service - if you tried to replicate Gmail or Dropbox, to the same level of reliability, performance and sharing features - the engineering effort alone would probably stump many of us.

Once again - is there a concrete fear here from application developers knowing how we use their applications? And is it one that we think people are somehow unaware of?

[darklajid]

You asked for fear three times in a row. People tried to make you understand that 'fear' isn't the problem. I'm not sure how to state it more clearly: "It's not fear"

You presented a very weird case to begin with by implying that the reason people wouldn't want to be tracked is 'fear'. Why?

Maybe you're really just saying "Okay, ignoring all the other reasons why you might not like tracking: Are there any inherent flaws in tracking/something we can do to make this more trustworthy", but right now I feel as if you're presenting a weird "Either you consent to us tracking you or you fear something (specific)" choice.

[victorhooi]

Well, if it's not fear, is there another reason you don't want application or webapp developers tracking your usage of their services?

I mean, isn't the whole point of these services that you store your data remotely on their services?

Why would you voluntarily choose to use something like Gmail, Instagram, Twitter, Dropbox etc, if you were concerned about the company in question or didn't trust them?

There are companies I won't use, precisely because of concerns like this (e.g. Sony, Lenovo) - but if somebody chooses to use a service, it's probably because the benefits of that service outweigh the "costs" to them.

In the case of Amazon Underground, which is the subject of the OP, I think it's a bit disingenuous to say, oh gee, I want free paid apps, but I don't want to allow Amazon to track my usage....which is sort of how the app developers get re-compensated.

Assuming you have voluntarily chosen to use a webapp or mobile app what are the key objections around those developers collecting telemetry data from you?

[DoubleMalt]

There are services like https://cloudfleet.io (disclaimer I'm one of the founders) that make it easy to get rid of GMail and Dropbox.

[victorhooi]

That is pretty cool =) - I've just had a skim of your IndieGoGo page (good luck with that), and it certainly looks interesting.

I suspect you're catering to a certain market (i.e. those willing to fork out either 450 EUR and put up with some rough edges, or willing to setup the VM themselves), but I applaud your effort. Good on you mate.

[DoubleMalt]

Well you can still get it for €150 if you're fast. And the base price is €240.