Why gather this much data if you are not monetizeing it?
It has a cost and can also become a liability. You don't do it just for fun.
It has a cost and can also become a liability. You don't do it just for fun.
Ironically, it's the people who disable all telemetry out of ignorance and paranoia that end up crying every time a developer deprecates their favorite feature or they have an issue with a new release. If you don't vote you don't get to complain. Mozilla's PM's in particular have repeatedly published and cited telemetry data in their decision making, and have referenced crash reports in proactively filed bugs.
Whether or not telemetry counts as spying depends on whether or not informed consent was obtained before data is sent. If any data is collected about me, my machines, or my use of my machines, and I have not explicitly been told about and agreed to it first, then I'm being spied on.