<i>Do anyone that&#x27;s so much against opt-in is aware of closed source tools that tracks you and use it anyway?<p>And..<p>Do you use any third party web service like gmail or any other?</i><p>I can only answer for myself, and it&#x27;s no to both, with caveats. I do have a hotmail account, but I only use it for subscriptions to public mailing lists. I&#x27;ve had it for over 20 years, and stopped using it for private correspondence around 2005. I also have an Android phone, but it&#x27;s not activated (as in, I never gave it any credentials to log in to any Google services, and I do not have a mobile data plan). Any application I need is sideloaded, or installed with F-Droid.<p>The rest of my networked machines are running Debian, OpenWRT or NetBSD. I do have a Windows (8.1) VM on my work laptop, but that VM is switched off unless I get paid to use it.<p><i>It&#x27;s true it&#x27;s not directly related to the functioning of the software, but it improves it in anyway, then there&#x27;s a connection with it.</i><p>It&#x27;s not a given to any specific user that sharing their data will improve the software in areas that the user cares about. Nor is it a certainty that not sharing leads to the software not improving in those areas.<p>There definitely is a case to be made that more accurate metrics will allow the developers to make more focused decisions, and I don&#x27;t think anyone is arguing against that. That&#x27;s not what the argument is about. The question is whether the developers&#x27; need for data is sufficient justification to hand over their users&#x27; data to the biggest aggregator of personal data on the planet, and whether it is justifiable to do so without the user&#x27;s knowledge (the primary reason for opt-in is because it&#x27;s the easiest way to unambiguously ascertain consent).