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I am of two minds about it. First off, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing your stuff properly categorized and easily accessible when needed so I

I am of two minds about it. First off, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing your stuff properly categorized and easily accessible when needed so I definitely understand the impulse. And the result looks like it does exactly that. Kudos. There is a part of me that dislikes this level of insight someone can have into my life and habits ( yes, it is intended for owner use, but the data is there, neatly organized for someone to access ). It is a weird comment for me, because I absolutely see the benefit of this project.

karlicoss 7y ago
I can see your concern! I guess I've got several thoughts on it: - One is along the lines of post-privacy: Lots of the stuff that I'm collecting one can find online anyway if they deliberately search for it. Tweets/reddit comments/instagram photos, etc. Some of it isn't public, let's say, Amazon purchases. But would I mind sharing it? Maybe not, who cares what I buy? Some ML algorithm that would show me ads? Whatever, I don't click on them anyway. The more stuff I don't mind to be public in the first place, the less is the chance someone can use it against me. But I understand it's ultimately something very personal. - Second is that I agree that the security professionals would handle the data much better than me. I don't even mind Google keeping my data, if only it was easier for me to access it when I need it! So generally I would happily pay professionals for a service to keep my data safe, being able to access it and integrate together, and for the infrastructure around it. Same way I'm using a bank to keep my money safe. But such infrastructure for data simply doesn't exist at the moment, because there is no demand for it from people. And silos only benefit the companies that keep this data, so the change isn't going to be come from them. E.g. if you can easily access your tweets through a nice and fast local app, why would you even visit bloated twitter.com, which is trying to 'entertain' and 'engage' you? I'm hoping that with projects like this, I can inspire people to think differently about their services and tools, and demand (from professionals, i.e. engineers/designers/product managers) for better means of using their own data.
YayamiOmate 7y ago
> There is a part of me that dislikes this level of insight someone can have into my life and habits ( yes, it is intended for owner use, but the data is there, neatly organized for someone to access ). Well this is already happening. Google and facebook for example earns basically all of their money from this. They replaced advertisment middle men because they can track and quantize human behaviours and identities. They do it because they are able to aggregate the data and provide API for marketing people. This is a tool that brings it closer to you as the creator of the data. it doesn't do anything new just exposes what's going on. If you are able to open pages through EU check out data processing partners from GDPR consent you have to accept. Lists on every professionally built services are long. There are literally thousands of companies accessing, aggregating, processing and reselling the data and their analysis. The tools you are afraid of already exist and are commercially available.

karlicoss 7y ago

I can see your concern! I guess I've got several thoughts on it: - One is along the lines of post-privacy: Lots of the stuff that I'm collecting one can find online anyway if they deliberately search for it. Tweets/reddit comments/instagram photos, etc. Some of it isn't public, let's say, Amazon purchases. But would I mind sharing it? Maybe not, who cares what I buy? Some ML algorithm that would show me ads? Whatever, I don't click on them anyway. The more stuff I don't mind to be public in the first place, the less is the chance someone can use it against me. But I understand it's ultimately something very personal. - Second is that I agree that the security professionals would handle the data much better than me. I don't even mind Google keeping my data, if only it was easier for me to access it when I need it! So generally I would happily pay professionals for a service to keep my data safe, being able to access it and integrate together, and for the infrastructure around it. Same way I'm using a bank to keep my money safe. But such infrastructure for data simply doesn't exist at the moment, because there is no demand for it from people. And silos only benefit the companies that keep this data, so the change isn't going to be come from them. E.g. if you can easily access your tweets through a nice and fast local app, why would you even visit bloated twitter.com, which is trying to 'entertain' and 'engage' you? I'm hoping that with projects like this, I can inspire people to think differently about their services and tools, and demand (from professionals, i.e. engineers/designers/product managers) for better means of using their own data.

YayamiOmate 7y ago

> There is a part of me that dislikes this level of insight someone can have into my life and habits ( yes, it is intended for owner use, but the data is there, neatly organized for someone to access ). Well this is already happening. Google and facebook for example earns basically all of their money from this. They replaced advertisment middle men because they can track and quantize human behaviours and identities. They do it because they are able to aggregate the data and provide API for marketing people. This is a tool that brings it closer to you as the creator of the data. it doesn't do anything new just exposes what's going on. If you are able to open pages through EU check out data processing partners from GDPR consent you have to accept. Lists on every professionally built services are long. There are literally thousands of companies accessing, aggregating, processing and reselling the data and their analysis. The tools you are afraid of already exist and are commercially available.