You're conflating two issues. If Matt wants money, we're happy to pay. That's a separate issue from telemetry.
We don't want a) a sole developer making decisions which the community has rejected, and b) software which sends telemetry by default.
We don't want a) a sole developer making decisions which the community has rejected, and b) software which sends telemetry by default.
Have you run a poll to be sure that >50% of the community rejects the change? Anyway, online polls are not reliable, it's difficult to be avoid sock puppets, people that don't use the software, ensure that people that disagree with your proposal care to vote, ...
Just make a fork and if most of the community agree with you, your fork will be most popular and shadow the original.
I can see that different people would take exception to that which is why there's an off switch for telemetry.
If you're having a difficult time accepting that telemetry exists at all, then I'm almost certain Matt would be happy to create a non-telemetry version for paid subscribers.