diff --git a/contract-tests/src/client_entity.rs b/contract-tests/src/client_entity.rs
index ca457c2..fdf5908 100644
--- a/contract-tests/src/client_entity.rs
+++ b/contract-tests/src/client_entity.rs
@@ -130,6 +130,7 @@ impl ClientEntity {
                 processor_builder.capacity(capacity);
             }
             processor_builder.all_attributes_private(events.all_attributes_private);
+            processor_builder.compress_events(false);
             if let Some(e) = events.enable_gzip {
                 processor_builder.compress_events(e);
             }
diff --git a/launchdarkly-server-sdk/Cargo.toml b/launchdarkly-server-sdk/Cargo.toml
index e21934c..16168d4 100644
--- a/launchdarkly-server-sdk/Cargo.toml
+++ b/launchdarkly-server-sdk/Cargo.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ exclude = [
 ]
 
 [package.metadata.docs.rs]
-features = ["event-compression"]
+features = []
 
 [dependencies]
 chrono = "0.4.19"
@@ -55,7 +55,11 @@ reqwest = { version = "0.12.4", features = ["json"] }
 testing_logger = "0.1.1"
 
 [features]
-default = ["hyper-rustls-native-roots", "crypto-aws-lc-rs"]
+default = [
+    "hyper-rustls-native-roots",
+    "crypto-aws-lc-rs",
+    "event-compression"
+]
 
 crypto-aws-lc-rs = ["dep:aws-lc-rs"]
 crypto-openssl = ["dep:openssl"]
diff --git a/launchdarkly-server-sdk/src/events/processor_builders.rs b/launchdarkly-server-sdk/src/events/processor_builders.rs
index 714be7e..5a2440a 100644
--- a/launchdarkly-server-sdk/src/events/processor_builders.rs
+++ b/launchdarkly-server-sdk/src/events/processor_builders.rs
@@ -178,6 +178,9 @@ impl<T: HttpTransport> EventProcessorBuilder<T> {
             private_attributes: HashSet::new(),
             omit_anonymous_contexts: false,
             transport: None,
+            #[cfg(feature = "event-compression")]
+            compress_events: true,
+            #[cfg(not(feature = "event-compression"))]
             compress_events: false,
         }
     }
@@ -261,11 +264,10 @@ impl<T: HttpTransport> EventProcessorBuilder<T> {
 
     #[cfg(feature = "event-compression")]
     /// Should the event payload sent to LaunchDarkly use gzip compression. By
-    /// default this is false to prevent backward breaking compatibility issues with
-    /// older versions of the relay proxy.
+    /// default this is true.
     //
-    /// Customers not using the relay proxy are strongly encouraged to enable this
-    /// feature to reduce egress bandwidth cost.
+    /// Customers using the relay proxy are encouraged to disable this feature to avoid unnecessary
+    /// CPU overhead, as the relay proxy will decompress & recompress the payloads.
     pub fn compress_events(&mut self, enabled: bool) -> &mut Self {
         self.compress_events = enabled;
         self