alt Hacker NewsThe average consumer doesn't care about signing up for an account, so that's an easy win for getting them in the email system and thereby tie all the telemetry events to an easily recognizable account. Imagine how valuable this information is.
Now you have system level events tied to a user, that might also purchase an office product and pump out more events.
Well, they might still do it but less aggressively. For example, only when using MS Store or only some specific services. Apple uses a similar strategy with MacOS. Online accounts can also be convenient with with service integrations, provided they are optional. Also, I slightly disagree that average users don't care at all. Even setting aside ideological reasons, mandatory online accounts are terrible if there is no internet or the system must be preinstalled for another person (although the person who installs is not that average user). The system should be functional in offline mode.