alt Hacker News> Surveys exist, interviews exist, focus groups exist, fostering communities that you can engage is a thing, etc.
We all know it’s extremely, extremely hard to interact with your userbase.
> For example I was paid $500 an hour
+the time to find volunteers doubled that, so for $1000 an hour x 10 user interviews, a free software can have feedback from 0.001% of their users. I dislike telemetry, but it’s a lie to say it’s optional.
—a company with no telemetry on neither of our downloadable or cloud product.
> We all know it’s extremely, extremely hard to interact with your userbase.
On the contrary, your users will tell you what you need to know, you just have to pay attention.
> I dislike telemetry, but it’s a lie to say it’s optional.
The lie is believing it’s necessary. Software was successful before telemetry was a thing, and tools without telemetry continue to be successful. Plenty of independent developers ship zero telemetry in their products and continue to be successful.