from Hacker News

Are “bring your own storage” apps a thing?

by matjazdrolc on 3/10/21, 1:16 PM with 7 comments

Are "bring your own storage" apps a thing?

I'm being inspired by draw.io, a web app for creating diagrams. Notably, it's not crammed with useless information and the user remains in charge of their data. A diagram can be stored as a file to your local device, Dropbox, Google Drive, OwnCloud or any other similar service.

In contrast, let's look at MyFitnesPal. Upon opening the app I'm faced with news, cookie confirmation dialog and sometimes promotional pop-ups. All this to simply input my body weight.

If MyFitnesPal followed a draw.io model, it would be a simple app with a couple of .csv files as a backend.

Is there a market opportunity for new breed of apps that are: - minimalistic in design and features - user remains in charge of the data by using text files as storage and by giving them a choice on where to store them

Where do I find people who think alike?

by float4 on 3/10/21, 1:33 PM
Most people don't care about their data. They don't even understand what companies do and do not collect. They want convenience.
Nonetheless, there are apps that don't collect data or allow you to sync to your own backend (usually to WebDAV).
Some links to get you started:
- https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26365835
by austincheney on 3/10/21, 5:16 PM
I am working on securely opening personal storage across the internet with a point-to-point app that also lets you selectively open parts of your file system to other users.
I just proved out the application’s security model yesterday in my test automation. Once I finish the messaging subapp I will bump it to version 0.1 for public beta, but you can play with it now on your home network.
https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems
by mtmail on 3/10/21, 2:15 PM
> If MyFitnesPal followed a draw.io model,
I don't see why a commercial company striving for revenue and growth would follow the free/open source model.
draw.io app by https://www.diagrams.net/about.html is free and open source (https://github.com/jgraph). Either the authors are volunteers or I can't figure out what their business model is.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/ received $18M in venture capital funding and has 18 open job position which I'd guess means over 100 employees. "UnderArmour sells MyFitnessPal for $345 million" https://www.zdnet.com/article/underarmour-sells-myfitnesspal...
by citruspi on 3/11/21, 11:27 AM
A little surprised no one has mentioned OmniGroup's [0] applications.
Some of their applications (e.g. OmniFocus) support syncing online via an Omni account, but also offer support for syncing to a custom WebDAV server[1]. I run my own WebDAV server and point the macOS and iOS apps at it.
[0]: https://www.omnigroup.com
[1]: https://support.omnigroup.com/documentation/omnifocus/mac/3....
by akadruid1 on 3/10/21, 10:51 PM
https://meetmyna.com/ is a minimalistic app that requires you to bring your own storage. Dropbox and OneDrive are supported.