Great post, Sarah! This is a very interesting and hot topic.

I think that tracking usage data is the best way to improve Gutenberg. Actually, I think it's the best way to improve any plugin or even WordPress itself, as I discussed in my talk at WCEU17 (WordPress Plugin and Theme Directories Don't Love Developers). So, yes, I completely agree with Riad Benguella when he says "WP.org needs its own tracking infrastructure and this could be very useful to enhance WordPress".

However, WordPress users might feel differently. During my talk, I could see the audience had mixed feelings. Some people (especially those that run a business) were really interested in tracking anonymous usage data. Others (concerned users) were completely against this "Big Brother" behaviors. Either way, it's a discussion we should have.

My opinion? I think that any developer who really wants this data will find a way to get it (implementing its own tracking solution or using alternatives such as Vova Feldman's Freemius), regardless of what "the community" decides. So, why don't we create this tracking module within WordPress? It'd be open source and the data we'd collect could be completely open, anonymous, and so on.