Data Privacy and Security Are Tools, Not Prisons

I keep my money in a bank. Some of it, at least. Some of it is kept in digital wallets and is in the form of digital currency. Those funds, whether fiat or crypto, are private (for the most part) and secure. But when I go out to dinner with my wife and kids, I spend some of that money. I take it out of its secure location, it no longer gets to be private, and I use it. But I use it and expose it because I choose to.

This seems like a silly lead paragraph, but consider that paragraph above in response to those who think that if you are to protect your data you cannot ever use a service that might gain access to that data. Take Medium, for example. If I was not conscious of what I was exposing, if I was not aware of how much or how little Medium the company and other third-parties could glean from the information I decide to share, that would be a problem. But, like spending money at dinner, I know both sides of the transaction. I know what I’m giving up (control over that specific article—no matter how much Medium claims users own their posts), and I know what I’m getting in return (distribution to Medium-natives, enhanced discoverability, and a new audience).

That doesn’t mean I want to expose all my data to Medium. That doesn’t mean I want to post every thought here. And like the money in my bank accounts and digital wallets, I want to keep some of my writing private. I want to wholly own those words and ensure they are mine alone.

That’s called flexibility. If we’re to build out a future where the internet is more decentralized, where users have more power over their data, we need to stop thinking about transactions in all-or-nothing terms. We need to think of these transactions like we do our money.

That’s why Graphite is releasing built-in integrations for Graphite Pro customers in the very near future.

Those Graphite Pro users, businesses and organizations small and large, have a clear need to protect their data, to keep things secure and private. But they also have businesses to run, tasks to complete, goals to hit. Part of balancing all of that is choice. The choice to share some content to traditional outlets while maintaining complete ownership of other things.

I’m especially excited about Graphite’s new integrations offerings because it marries both decentralized application integrations, where data remains totally encrypted and totally owned by the user, with traditional application integrations.

I hope you’re just as excited about the idea of taking back control of your data as I am, but I also hope you understand and recognize the balance of the transaction.

If you ever forget, just think about how that balance works when you pay for dinner with your family. And if you’re interested in learning more about Graphite Pro, let’s talk!