Let Me Let You Own Your Data

Why do I have to choose between my web app respecting people’s privacy and it, like… having basic functionality? When I was working on Cheapskate, I realized after a few weeks that there was a fundamental issue. The app relies on Supabase for the unsexy parts of its architecture: authentication and a SQL datastore. All of it is bog-standard and all of it I happily handed off to be someone else’s problem. To be clear, I love Supabase – if I had to run all that boilerplate myself, I never would have made Cheapskate. But… the shape of it is wrong. I don’t want to own this data. This is a person’s financial details! Shouldn’t that live with them, and not with me? Is it even possible to make a web app like this, with anything close to the same convenience and functionality…