There is a difference between using irony to rail the grandiloquence with which something is presented and harsh critics of the thing itself or the intention behind producing the thing itself.

Engineering is all about trade-offs, so "nothing is granted without paying some constraint acceptance" is the only fundamental baseline.

Local application is local, it doesn't deal with network in any way, except if end user goal require to send/receive some external information. So a calculator or a solo game doesn't require network at all, but a chat app or some MMORPG have a legitimate need to access network, but only to communicate with other users.

Telemetry is just an other word for spying. Spyware integrated used to be considered a clear sign of malvolonte project.

Software update can be put as a separated concern.