"Spyware" is a bit of an exaggeration. Pretty much all the things it does are also done on Android phones, and it asks you on setup if you'd like to disable any.

Now, MS isn't an ad company like Google, and enabling data collection by default is the wrong approach for users. It feels like it was build with features (that you probably don't care about--Hey Cortana) in mind before privacy.

Have you looked at the network traffic coming out of macOS lately?