> Ok, but many times this leads to wrong conclusions.
Yes, but they're much more accurate than the existing systems: user surveys and focus groups. Those are both notoriously useless because people lie (intentionally or otherwise). Even so, telemetry doesn't wholly replace them. It's on top of them.
Marketing is hard, in part because the data you're working with is either (a) untimely, (b) incorrect, or (c) incomplete. User surveys and focus groups are often all three. Telemetry data is largely just incomplete. That's still a huge improvement. In the worst case, it can be used like grading a test.
> Just because a feature is not used by everyone, or used rarely, does not mean it's useless.
And thanks to a software based interface, maybe you don't need to eliminate that feature. You just don't need to continue to develop it.
Look, whether or not their market data is correct, a company that dedicates their resources in the wrong spot is reducing the value of their product to the customer. It means the product is more expensive for no reason. It means that the majority are subsidizing a feature they don't use in exchange for more development on the core functionality that they do. That's just what that means.
And in terms of probability, the truth is that you've got features on your appliances that you paid for and you will never use. Wouldn't you like your money back on those features? You might be the guy who loves the lilac perfume option in your dishwasher, but you probably aren't if only 5% of people use it. That makes it a luxury feature at best, especially because it might be another point of failure. Let those who want the luxury feature pay the cost of that luxury feature.
Tell me you've never bought an appliance or tool that has a dozen features that get in the way of what you actually want to use it for. How that one time you bought a really nice coffee maker because you want to make good coffee easily, and you ended up spending 10 minutes every morning arguing with it. So you went out and got a coffee maker whose only control is an on-off rocker switch, and you love it because it's dead simple, gives you exactly as much control as you want, and can be operated by the pre-coffee brain.