So what Anthropic calls "telemetry" is really "telechangeability"? That's sits with me even less comfortably than did the idea that some features are only available with telemetry enabled.
I fully believe GP that there was zero intent to gate this behind collecting telemetry. Sounds like a little tech debt and a little oversight, and the simplest explanation is that it is.
It's much preferable to be able to instantly fix it if the rollout of a new feature goes wrong than have everyone who installed the broken version bring stuck with problems until the company realizes the issue and rolls forwards with a fixed version.
It’s not a crazy conspiracy. They messed up, it’s fine.