[dogma1138]

I agree that there should be an opt-out option (other than not installing GFE, tho considering that GFE has always phoned home I don't know if that is that important), yes in an ideal world people should opt-in, the problem is that almost no one does.

Anyone who ever worked on a crash report system knows that opt-in rates are below 10% even for corporate clients. Heck if you are lucky you get single digit % figures on "send this report" even if the checkbox is ticked by default, the vast majority of people just hit cancel.

The stats are actually pretty darn interesting, especially for image quality vs fps I had a chance to speak to a few reps from NVIDIA once and they told me that as much as PC players bitch and moan about 60fps vsync the vast majority of them would push settings at the expense of smooth(er) framerates even if they have no to very little effect on image quality.

[throwaway2048]

maybe opt-in rates are low because people dont want the data sent? Assuming they are wrong because it makes your job harder is a pretty self serving deduction.

[dogma1138]

People aren't bothered about security or privacy, they just cannot be bothered.

Giving even the slightest incentive to send data brings those numbers up extensively even if what you get is meaningless.

Basically humans need a reason to tick a box.

This is why this is under GFE which gives you value added services.

[throwaway2048]

>People aren't bothered about security or privacy, they just cannot be bothered.

Says who? You? Facebook? Microsoft? Google? You don't see the inherent conflict of benefiting from that position and declaring it, unilaterally, it to be so?

How many people do you think would be comfortable, and explicitly approve the kinds of "opt out" data collection that goes on, if you gave them the true extent of how that data can be/is used along with the impacts of it?

Frankly, fuck the attitude that you, or any other developer knows more than me, and decides that i "Just cannot be bothered", especially when its to their (often considerable) benefit.

[LordDragonfang]

> Says who? You? Facebook? Microsoft? Google?

I think you just answered your own question. "Says" the plurality or even majority of the human population who use services from the companies you just listed, despite constantly being under scrutiny for privacy concerns.

[Karunamon]

When using "people" in aggregate, this is a completely correct statement . It's why, for example, HN throws a fit[1] the moment a developer goes so far as to add anonymous google analytics to a package manager [2] even when that data couldn't possibly be used to harm them or track them in any way.

If you make $thing opt in, most people will not do $thing, regardless of what $thing is. Defaults matter.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720

[2]: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics....

[blub]

Google analytics. Anonymous. Couldn't possibly be used to track them.

You've either missed the last decade of privacy-related discussions or you're playing for team spyware yourself.

Companies like Google have billions, lawyers lobbyists, sociologists and every bloody specialist working for them to suck all information out of everybody and there's always some clueless person jumping to their defense with some pointlessly pedantic arguments. Because we don't want to be unfair towards Google or nvidia.

[dogma1138]

It's not about missing the privacy discussion it's about the public at large not giving a flying duck about it, regardless of what you think.

Pick a random person on the street and ask them, you need to understand that by enlarge simply by knowing about this site you are already part of a tiny subculture of of the general population, and most likely living in a walled garden as far as your social connections goes.

People don't opt in, but they don't care about their privacy just look at the amount of people that would sign up for a mailing list/club benefits at a store they'll only visit maybe once in their life for a 5-10$ worth of discount that they'll never lose - for that they'll be willing to give up a whole lot more of personal information that GA or NVIDIA GFE collects.

This doesn't excuses the practices, it's just the reality we live in.

[Karunamon]

Or, I don't agree with this absurd definition of privacy that the tech sector has gotten itself enamored with, but okay, we'll go with the accusations of being a shill.