What's wrong with automated bug reporting tools? I am very grateful for the 100/1000s of automated reports we get, they would be near impossible to shake out of even a technical user.
Because then the whole free software crowd starts marking your app as "Evil" and containing non-free antifeatures.
It’s hard to find a good solution.
I'm not sure what you mean, what kind of tools, that are sad?
Because now your only solution is sharing as much information as is necessary for understanding the bug with your own server.
Which a lot of people in the free software crowd dislike, because of privacy implications. I, personally, dislike it, too.
I think he means reporting built into the program itself, such as when the program crashes. I don't know why it is sad.