<div dir="ltr"><div>then maybe Amazon should get in the business of Messaging... </div>"personal cloud" seems to be a subject of interest of academic researchers too, Mylar being the latest (I think) [0]. [0] <a href="http://css.csail.mit.edu/mylar/">http://css.csail.mit.edu/mylar/</a> </div><div class="gmail_extra"> <div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 1:28 AM, Daniel Roesler <<a href="mailto:diafygi@gmail.com" target="_blank">diafygi@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="">On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Wasa Bee <<a href="mailto:wasabee18@gmail.com">wasabee18@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > Because we don't see ads does not mean these companies' business model is > not based on mining personal data... and selling it to someone else... We > don't see ads in whatsapps, yet facebook presumably acquired it so it could > mine users' data and put ads in their corresponding facebook page. > If the idea is to get UI experts to enhance the UI on top of OTR, I surely > like the idea. But I am not convinced that a good UI would be enough to push > private messaging to the mass without a proper business model that does not > rely on mining data. Any idea? </div>Agreed. Non-data mining business models are pretty tough to scale, unfortunately[1]. One possibility is for cloud storage providers (Dropbox, SpiderOak, Box, etc.) to build E2E apps that use their cloud storage as the app's backend. Their business model is based on selling storage, so they don't have as much of a financial incentive to mine user data. Additionally, they could start to offer E2E alternatives to existing popular apps, which could possibly bring in many new users to buy storage from them. For example, I have a free SpiderOak account. If SpiderOak started to offer a E2E apps that stored data encrypted on its server, I might use up more space, which might push me into having to upgrade to a paid account. I've explored this concept a bit with my byoFS project[2], where it allows user to connect their own cloud storage to use as a webapp's backend. It's a similar idea to the remoteStorage protocol[3], except data is automatically encrypted before being sent to the connected cloud storage. For a recent hackathon[4], I exploited the ability to make Dropbox files public as a way to create an E2E encrypted chat with an unhosted webapp[5]. The next chance I get, I'd like to make an E2E encrypted social network that's hosted entirely on users' own cloud storage accounts. Anyway, as cloud storage gets commoditized, I think providers are going to be looking for ways to differentiate themselves, and building E2E encrypted alternatives to existing apps may be a good way to attract users. Daniel [1] - <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/" target="_blank">http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/</a> [2] - <a href="https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS" target="_blank">https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS</a> [3] - <a href="http://remotestorage.io/" target="_blank">http://remotestorage.io/</a> [4] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTPimUSIWbI" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTPimUSIWbI</a> [5] - <a href="https://diafygi.github.io/byoFS/examples/chat/" target="_blank">https://diafygi.github.io/byoFS/examples/chat/</a> </blockquote></div> </div>