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GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

cli.github.com

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Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#281

Post by kelvinjps10 »

xigoi wrote: post #262
johnfn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can spend the weeks to months of expensive and time consuming work it takes to get a fuzzy, half accurate and biased picture of what your users workflows look like through user interviews and surveys. Or you can look at the analytics, which tell you everything you need to know immediately, always up to date, with perfect precision. Sometimes HN drives me crazy. From this thread you’d think telemetry is scre…

Many products would be much better if they listened to what people are saying on public forums instead of using telemetry. For example, Google Maps has a longstanding bug where it auto-translates all reviews even if they are in a language you speak. If Google cared about user feedback, they could’ve easily fixed it, but no amount of telemetry will tell them this.

I hate this feature. Google knows the languages I speak because I added them in my account, even with all the tracking they obviously know, but they keep messing it up in all their products, Google Search, YouTube (they add machine audio translations to videos and translate the thumbnails).

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#282

Post by attentive »

Sytten wrote: post #61
a2128 wrote: post #14

Why we collect telemetry ...our team needs visibility into how features are being used in practice. We use this data to prioritize our work and evaluate whether features are meeting real user needs. I'm curious why corporate development teams always feel the need to spy on their users? Is it not sufficient to employ good engineering and design practices? Git has served us well for 20+ years without detailed analytics…

I used to believe that it was not necessary until I started building my own startup. If you dont have analytics you are flying blind. You don't know what your users actually care about and how to optimize a successful user journey. The difference between what people tell you when asked directly and how they actually use your software is actually shocking.

It's not like they don't own API's that those cli's are hitting. They have all the stats they need.

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#283

Post by pledg »

hahn-kev wrote: post #227
ryanshrott wrote: post #155

> you're going to have to opt out of a lot more than this one setting The opt-out situation for gh CLI telemetry is actually trickier than it sounds. gh runs in CI/CD pipelines and server environments where you may not want any outbound connections to github.com at all, not because of privacy but because of networking constraints. In those environments, the telemetry being on by default means your CI fails or your Ba…

Isn't the gh CLI useless if it can't connect to GitHub.com? Or does it work with enterprise GitHub and that's the use case you're talking about.

It does work with enterprise instances

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#284

Post by EGG_CREAM »

Sytten wrote: post #61
a2128 wrote: post #14

Why we collect telemetry ...our team needs visibility into how features are being used in practice. We use this data to prioritize our work and evaluate whether features are meeting real user needs. I'm curious why corporate development teams always feel the need to spy on their users? Is it not sufficient to employ good engineering and design practices? Git has served us well for 20+ years without detailed analytics…

I used to believe that it was not necessary until I started building my own startup. If you dont have analytics you are flying blind. You don't know what your users actually care about and how to optimize a successful user journey. The difference between what people tell you when asked directly and how they actually use your software is actually shocking.

[dead]

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#285

Post by tornikeo »

isoprophlex wrote: post #109
tornikeo wrote: post #95

Good for GitHub. All companies need this. Some use it to improve products, some use it for less commendable goals. I know HN crowd is allergic to telemetry but if you've ever developed a software as a service, telemetry is indispensable.

God forbid you talk to your users

Talking is a must. But just like quantum particles, users behave and talk very differently. Just look at gamers - most of them say they _hate_ AI in games, yet they are actively behaving differently, buying games made with AI, using AI, etc.

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#286

Post by sidkshatriya »

a2128 wrote: post #14

Why we collect telemetry ...our team needs visibility into how features are being used in practice. We use this data to prioritize our work and evaluate whether features are meeting real user needs. I'm curious why corporate development teams always feel the need to spy on their users? Is it not sufficient to employ good engineering and design practices? Git has served us well for 20+ years without detailed analytics…

> ...our team needs visibility into how features are being used in practice. We use this data to prioritize our work and evaluate whether features are meeting real user needs.

You should be able to see what features are being used by seeing what server endpoints are being hit and how often. Don't need intrusive telemetry. Yes, it's not perfect. Many features could use the same endpoint. You could totally anonymise this and you could still get a great understanding what features users are using by looking at endpoint stats.

Companies need to decide whether they want customer goodwill or very detailed insight into what they are doing. By having invasive telemetry you may have less customers (people leaving for github competitors). Is it worth it ?

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#287

Post by sidkshatriya »

Sytten wrote: post #61
a2128 wrote: post #14

Why we collect telemetry ...our team needs visibility into how features are being used in practice. We use this data to prioritize our work and evaluate whether features are meeting real user needs. I'm curious why corporate development teams always feel the need to spy on their users? Is it not sufficient to employ good engineering and design practices? Git has served us well for 20+ years without detailed analytics…

I used to believe that it was not necessary until I started building my own startup. If you dont have analytics you are flying blind. You don't know what your users actually care about and how to optimize a successful user journey. The difference between what people tell you when asked directly and how they actually use your software is actually shocking.

> If you dont have analytics you are flying blind

If you have too much emphasis on (invasive) analytics you might end up flying empty i.e. without customers.

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#288

Post by johnfn »

codedokode wrote: post #266
johnfn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can spend the weeks to months of expensive and time consuming work it takes to get a fuzzy, half accurate and biased picture of what your users workflows look like through user interviews and surveys. Or you can look at the analytics, which tell you everything you need to know immediately, always up to date, with perfect precision. Sometimes HN drives me crazy. From this thread you’d think telemetry is scre…

Why do you need to collect hardware fingerprint, IMEI, phone number, geolocation, list of nearby wifi access points, list of installed applications, selfie and passport photo when you can simply count how much times a server route was called?

My comment explicitly uses "how many people clicked the secondary button on the third tab" as an example, not any of that nonsense -- you are not responding in good faith.

Re: GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry

#290

Post by johnfn »

embedding-shape wrote: post #221
johnfn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be interpreting my position as saying that one should only use telemetry to make decisions. Of course, no one reasonable would hold that position! What I’m saying is that only relying on user interviews without supplementing them with analytics would be knowingly introducing a blind spot into how you understand user behavior.

Yes, probably because someone else said "If you dont have analytics you are flying blind" which I initially replied to, then when you replied to my reply, I took that as agreeing with parent, which isn't necessarily true. > What I’m saying is that only relying on user interviews without supplementing them I also took your "spend the weeks to months of expensive and time consuming work [...] Or you can look at the ana…

Maybe it just comes down to how you interpret "flying blind", because I do tend to agree with that statement. Telemetry is one half of the puzzle, user interviews are the other. Without either I would argue you are flying blind; I think you agree here though.
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