I don't know if that's the correct interpretation? I would say they degraded the UX because they aren't hoovering up enough data to make their solution work properly, unlike Google and Amazon. They've done a better job of protecting the user's privacy, but at the cost of making something that's quite limited in what it can do. Just one of those tradeoffs.
No, what I mean is: they could've had persistent storage on device, and have it hoover up enough data, and learn user preferences over time - it's fine to do it locally, as long as it doesn't leave the device. But, when you also do extensive telemetry, it becomes very hard to ensure none of that sensitive data gets leaked directly or indirectly through logs and diagnostic events. The two easy choices are to pick one or the other - UX or extensive telemetry. They chose the latter.
