> Honest question, what's the problem with crash dumps that include no personal info?

In addition to the other response: crash dumps are difficult to anonymize, both because useful crash dumps include something like a minidump (or some other small alternative to a core file), and because even without that, any random information from a backtrace may be sensitive (e.g. a URL).

There's nothing wrong with saving a crash dump and giving the user control of whether to submit a bug report.

They expose to the developer that someone was using their software behind that IP address at that time. It also can frequently include private information. The events that occur on my computer are mine and do not belong to the developer of the software.

Anyone on the path potentially learns something about your system and your software use.

Your IP during connection exposes your rough location.

Crash logs rarely are completely anonymized so both together can additionally serve as a way to re-identify the user.

The only way to properly transmit telemetry data would be Tor. And no, even then I don’t want my tools to report back my use. It’s simply not required, and data minimization is part of my set of ethics, and I’m happy that EU/GDPR sees it the same way. Not all data that you think is worth something to you is morally right to collect. You send data somewhere, even just to check for updates - ask me first. I do not want my hammer to report back how many nails I hammered in. I don’t want my software to reach out to the world without my consent.

I would suggest that the default to enrolling people in supplying such information is the issue. In a world driven by surveillance capitalism, even "anonymous" data can be used for much broader purposes (think, for example, of when and where people are using tools geographically and at what times: you can start to track the behaviour of people in this way).

Users should never be opted in through usage alone of free or paid-for tooling to supply information that isn't part of the function of the tool. Where that is required for a service or product, you should opt-in explicitly, not implicitly.