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It is nonconsensual when the starting premise is "using Audacity".

"Consensual" in that case would mean opt-in telemetry.

That’s some serious mental gymnastics. I’ll be sure file a complaint at the supermarket for nonconsenual collections: I wanted to take the vegetables home, but they don’t let me opt out of paying.

Unless the telemetry is somehow a form of payment for using the (open source) product, I think your argument falls under:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Given that the context here is “a producer of something setting the terms under which they’ll give it to somebody else”, my grocery store hardly sounds like an extreme example.

It is when you add telemetry to your vegetables.

Imagine if your grocery store terms were that you have to pay to take them home... and also that you must consent to a grocery store employee following you home and sitting in your kitchen, watching your vegetables. They'd take note of how and where you store them, when you use them, how you prepare them, how much you eat in each sitting, what meals you eat them with, and how satisfied you seem to be with them. They'd report all of this information back to the grocery store. They'd also report anything else they see or hear and decide they might be interested in later on.

Does that really not sound extreme?

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