Two comments in this thread (this one and a sibling) mention needing to save often due to programs crashing, as if reliability of the software is solved by showing ads and tracking activity, or is a function of the size of the program or the speed of the computers or software, the things FeistySkink had mentioned.
Not sure about the ads, but telemetry definitely increases reliability. It allows to debug very specific issues with a comprehensive information about user environment. Source: debugged proprietary app multiple times using telemetry information. Sometimes the issues discovered were not reproducible without recreating some very specific environments.
Surely there are downsides to telemetry and tracking, but they can be useful for development.
MS would like to dissagree. There are bugs which are not closed after years (mouse registered double clicks, blacked out parts of GUI, programms starting on inexisting screens).
