There’s a phrase you hear constantly in technology:
“The cloud.”
It sounds almost magical.
Your photos are in the cloud.
Your documents are in the cloud.
Your passwords are in the cloud.
Your email is in the cloud.
Your backups are in the cloud.
Apparently, we’ve collectively decided to put most of our lives in a cloud and hope it doesn’t rain.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I use cloud services.
They’re incredibly useful.
But while building my own software, I’ve found myself asking a slightly different question:
Why does every application need my data in the first place?
Sometimes It Makes Sense
There are applications where storing information online is the entire point.
Email obviously needs servers.
File synchronization needs somewhere to synchronize files.
Online collaboration needs a way for people to share information.
That’s perfectly reasonable.
But somewhere along the way, it became almost automatic.
Install an app.
Create an account.
Give us your email address.
Verify your email address.
Choose a password.
Agree to a privacy policy nobody reads.
Now upload your information to our servers.
And sometimes I’m sitting there thinking:
Why?
I just wanted the app to do something on my phone.
An Account Should Have a Reason to Exist
This is one of the questions I’m trying to ask whenever I build something.
Does this app actually need an account?
If the answer is no…
Then why would I make you create one?
An account means another username.
Another password.
Another database.
Another server storing information about you.
Another potential security problem.
Another company you have to trust.
And another account you’ll probably forget you created three years from now.
Sometimes the simplest account system is:
No account system at all.
I like that one.
Your Data Doesn’t Become More Valuable Because I Have a Copy
There’s an interesting mindset in software today.
Data is valuable.
And that’s true.
But valuable to whom?
Your photos are valuable to you.
Your documents are valuable to you.
Your messages are valuable to you.
That doesn’t automatically mean they should be valuable to me.
I don’t need to know everything you’re doing inside an application.
I don’t need a giant dashboard showing exactly how you use every feature.
And I certainly don’t need to collect information just because technically I could.
If I don’t need the data…
I’d rather not have it.
Not Having Your Data Has Another Advantage
I can’t lose something I never had.
That sounds almost too simple, but it’s true.
Every database becomes something that needs protecting.
Every account system needs security.
Every piece of personal information stored somewhere creates responsibility.
Security matters enormously to me.
But one of the best ways to protect information is still:
Don’t collect it unless you actually need it.
There’s no security patch required for a database that doesn’t exist.
This Is Why I Like Local-First Software
I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea of software being local first.
Your computer does the work.
Your phone does the work.
Your files stay with you whenever possible.
That doesn’t mean nothing ever connects to the internet.
Obviously JustMail needs to connect to your email provider.
OMV Companion needs to communicate with your server.
But there’s an important difference.
The application connects you to your service.
It doesn’t necessarily need to route everything through my service first.
Why should it?
If your phone can talk directly to your server, I don’t need to stand in the middle.
That’s less infrastructure for me.
Less dependency for you.
And one less place your information needs to travel.
Everybody wins.
There’s Also Something Nice About Ownership
I wrote about this when I talked about OMV Companion.
I like the idea that your computer is still your computer.
Your server is your server.
Your files are your files.
Software shouldn’t quietly turn ownership into permission.
You shouldn’t wake up one morning and discover that something you relied on disappeared because a company shut down a server.
Or changed its business model.
Or decided the feature you already had now belongs in the Premium Plus Ultra plan.
If something can reasonably continue working without me…
I’d like it to.
That’s a strange business strategy, perhaps.
“Our goal is to make sure you don’t depend on us.”
But I actually like the sound of that.
Privacy Doesn’t Need to Be a Feature
This might be the biggest thing.
Privacy often gets marketed like it’s some premium feature.
NOW WITH PRIVACY!
I don’t think it should work that way.
Privacy can simply be a consequence of how software is designed.
Don’t collect unnecessary information.
Don’t track people unnecessarily.
Don’t send information somewhere unless there’s a reason.
Don’t make people create accounts when they don’t need them.
Let their devices do the work they’re perfectly capable of doing.
None of that is particularly glamorous.
You can’t make a very exciting advertisement about a database you decided not to build.
But maybe that’s okay.
I Don’t Need to Own Your Digital Life
I want to build useful software.
I want people to enjoy using it.
I’d like people to recommend it.
I’d even like to make some money doing this.
But none of those things require me to know everything about the people using my apps.
There’s a line I keep coming back to:
If I don’t need your data to make the software work, I don’t want it.
Not because data isn’t valuable.
Because it is.
It’s yours.
And whenever possible, that’s exactly where I think it should stay.
Until next week,
Kev