Back in 2010, we engaged in endless discussions about the use of data. At the time, Big Data was the hot topic. People like the amazingly talented David McCandless, a data journalist and one of the most respected information designers around, were making data sexy.
Every company bragged about knowing more and more about its users. All over the world, data architects, analysts, experts were getting pumped by the likes of Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and SAP, whilst Facebook was under fire for knowing too much, for claiming the rights to information people had unwittingly offered up. Instagram claimed copyright over imagery. In general, the market was frantically drawing up infographics to brag about their knowledge.
And oh, the bragging. Oh, the infographics. To be caught in the dull-eyed, evangelical stare of a data scientist talking about Big Data was something to behold.
Their words worked. Every company feared being left behind. The fear was palpable. If you were not part of the new data extraction industry, what were you left with? How soon did you want to die? It was like you’d shown up in the boomtown and were sitting lacing up your shoes while prospectors staked their claims, drove in their pickaxes. Why are we not doing this? There were voices in most organizations asking this question, sometimes in a considered manner, sometimes shrill. It’s a tough question to answer.
We asked ourselves if we should use more of our collected data to target users. At that time, we had only gathered hundreds of thousands – rather than millions – of users. Should we start looking at who was using the service? Should we investigate their actions? Could we? What sort of data could be gathered? Much of this conversation was driven by the fact we were bootstrapped. Energy rich – cash poor. We weren’t looking for investors. We were just trying to get the business off the ground.
In the end, we agreed we would ask ourselves a simple question: ‘What would we like to obtain from our users?’ The resounding answer was: ‘Nothing. We should try to protect our users.’ We knew our community. We’d heard them express their fears.
Our goal, we decided, should be to create a safe haven for people to get stuff done. It was that simple. Again, this sentiment seems at first glance straightforward but it has become inadvertently revolutionary in this industry. Users shouldn’t have to worry about where their data is being stored. They shouldn’t worry about it being misused. So that’s what we did: nothing.
(As an aside, one of the problems with the business book industry is it’s very tough to be able to preach stasis, to tell people to do nothing. Businesses thrive on action, Top 10s, or so we’re told. Better to be a bold decision maker (and be totally wrong) than be too ponderous, too slow to act. Better to move fast, and break things of value and worth and irreplaceable cost, than do nothing. But, in fact, here we are, and here’s the lesson we learned: doing nothing is sometimes a strong move.)
We try to hold the same beliefs today as we did back then. It’s not always easy. External pressure never relents. Since we launched Collect for iOS and acquired Paper, the drawing app for iOS, the fight to hold on to our core beliefs has become more challenging. As soon as you’re running apps across the app store and offering multiple products, this becomes more complex.
Retrospectively, you could call this our inadvertent ‘small data policy’. We use the minimum data necessary to ensure we can serve uber-premium ads to the right people in order to keep offering a free service to the other users.
The right people being those who cared, those spending enough time on the internet to call it their workplace, and those who especially appreciated our attention to detail and desire to remain focused and in a state of flow.
To quote Ken Robinson: ‘Flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity.’
For a while we’ve employed terms that are now creeping into vogue: humanistic, authentic, lean, responsible, culture-driven. Although we are a technology company, we want to apply technology and innovation to the product without compromise. That means we don’t have to compromise. Users don’t have to compromise.
I don’t know exactly how we’ve done it but we’ve been able to grow, and when I look back, the outcome of ushering a company forward in a fraternal environment means that we’ve been able to relate to our users in a different way.
And actually I do know how we’ve been able to grow.
We’ve moved from 1 million files transferred per day in 2012 to 1 billion files transferred per month in 2018, with transfers taking place in 195 countries and nearly every major fashion brand in the world advertising on the site.
That came about because we’ve been able to ask questions like: ‘How should we relate to our users?’
Our experience from initiating a constant conversation with our users paid off. We didn’t need to relate to them in one, monolithic way. We didn’t have to set up an antagonistic relationship. They weren’t seen as people we had to dupe. We’re not their owners. We’re not their Facebook friends.
Companies tumble forward, some grow and some, like Facebook, expand into businesses so strapping and large they need to keep redefining their relationships and redefining themselves as they get bigger and bigger. Perhaps it’s the nature of Facebook itself, or the personality of its creator, but this great tech presence seems to say it knows what’s best. It’s not the only one.
Lean data means you don’t have to do this. A lean data policy means you’re able to progress using the same definition of the word transparency that we, as human beings, have been using for centuries.
On the other hand, a company like Facebook is all about a brand-new definition of transparency – the transparency of our time, and not just the common or garden variety but something that borders on ‘radical transparency’. Transparency that’s expected from you, the consumer, but never from them, the folks at Facebook.
‘You know what’s good for you? We’ll tell you. We’ll let you know.’
We knew this was not the kind of paternalistic relationship we wanted with users.
One example: ‘You know what’s good for our users?’ Facebook seemed to say. ‘Not having a different personality at work than at home.’ But was this real transparency?
‘Even if we don’t intend our secrets to become public knowledge,’ writes Franklin Foer (on the subject of the wants of tech in his recent book World Without Mind), ‘their exposure will improve society. With the looming threat that our embarrassing information will be broadcast, we’ll behave better. And perhaps the ubiquity of incriminating photos and damning revelations will prod us to become more tolerant of one another’s sins.’
Yeah. Perhaps.
Or perhaps we should just let people be.
Besides, Foer goes on to say, there’s virtue in living our lives truthfully, right? We’re told that. By Facebook. Could anything be more paternalistic than Facebook’s ongoing attitude towards us?
Foer likens it to the technologists’ view – Zuckerberg has unknowingly become heir to the tradition of engineers knowing what’s best.
At a certain point, we looked at our own company and made a decision – and it was easy to make – that the way we’d relate to our users was not Zuckerberg-paternalistic. We’d been amongst them, in the middle of them, in the beginning, and we’d continue to work alongside them. And we’d find a way to show this was viable.
A social network is very different from a sharing system, some would argue. Sure, but we’re both providing free tools to enable connection, and we’re both meeting users at an intersection where they could possibly offer up personal information. We could use them or we could work with them. As we progress, we must see this meeting point as a chance for definition. And it’s worth offering up a viable alternative option.
We need to make it clear that within the world of Facebook, you will be told. It’s not exactly a circle of empathy. The decisions born out of a technocratic impulse are made for you, and the reality of working and creating within Facebook, or the worlds of Google, means entering spaces where the opaque algorithms can affect you and decide what’s right. In the Facebook world you are given what seems to be great power, but is that true? Look at the flow of thought. The flow of a feed. The flow of information for Facebook is not unimpeded. It’s manipulated.
It may be the sort of action a company would use with an underling. But what about a co-worker?
For us, in a more modest way, the idea of file transfer is the beginning of a clear, non-opaque relationship. It’s a start. It’s a gesture. We work alongside you, and this sense of being at the user’s elbow, rather than somewhere above them, needs to emerge as an alternative. More than anything, this is a tone we set early on in our growth, and it will follow us – a process where we are not telling someone what to do.
However big WeTransfer gets, we will be able to offer an experience that does not obstruct. How do we fund this? Can we use these tools in a better way? Can we grow a tech business that doesn’t rely on the dark arts? And by extension, can all of you next-generation, hot-stepping start-uppers do the same?
I often wonder if it’s time to fuse the online and offline worlds together. Decades into the life of the internet, might it be time to bring the ethos of companies like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s into the online world? There must be money to be made by adopting the ethos of companies that operate in a different way than that easy villain, Facebook.
Maybe adopting offline values will take an ongoing education for the consumer. Maybe such values will be introduced by employees who are getting tired of the questionable morals of tech companies.
Maybe Facebook employees will tire of feeling like hackers and might recognize themselves as being on the wrong side of the fight for civil rights (and in this case that could be shorthand for privacy rights).
Not everyone will suddenly be virtuous – what are the freaking odds? – but this promise of a more symbiotic world/work experience is becoming more seductive – and necessary. Adopting and repurposing offline values means using the great and powerful tools of tech without an underlying tone of manipulation.
It’s coming.
Maybe the consumer will have to lead. People are beginning to realize something’s wrong. You don’t have to taste the pesticides. Sometimes it’s enough to be told they’re on your foods.
In the past, what has happened next?
You change your behaviour, and look for companies that are working with you, rather than against you. Information companies, companies that distribute information, companies that could, with no questions asked, demand more personal data – we’re entering a time when two-way transparency is necessary. Offline values are necessary.
Transparency is not solely expected of the user.