I think your view of the ways usage stats are used is a bit simplistic. Not everyone remove "underused" features without giving some consideration, even in big corporations.
But since you clearly don't like telemetry, you should have a way to reliably switch it off. Here we are on the same page: there must be a well-documented and easy way to switch any telemetry off.
If telemetry is on by default, the vendor obviously wants you to have telemetry on. They are incentivized to make switching it off as difficult as possible, and even pull tricks like turning it back on after a delay of 7 or 30 days or so.
Telemetry should be opt-in, if it's provided at all.
But since you clearly don't like telemetry, you should have a way to reliably switch it off. Here we are on the same page: there must be a well-documented and easy way to switch any telemetry off.