There was a time when the golden rule of consumer app development was as simple as ABCD: Always Be Collecting Data.
The strategy?
1️⃣ Grow your user base as fast as possible.
2️⃣ Track every interaction, every event, every click.
3️⃣ Figure out how to monetize the data — usually through targeted advertising, if you couldn’t think of anything more creative.
But that game is changing. Consumers are more privacy-aware than ever. Regulators — especially in the EU, California, Japan, and a few other regions — have stepped in. And both founders and investors are realizing that data-harvesting at scale is not a sustainable or ethical business model.
With poketto.me, I’m taking a different path. Rather than play the "data = gold" game, I’m trying to adhere as closely as possible to the GDPR’s principle of data minimization—collecting only what’s needed, with a clear purpose in mind.
Here are just a few things I could track — but currently don’t:
📍 Your location
🎂 Your age or gender
⏳ Time spent in the app
📖 How long you spend reading each article
📚 The types of content you’re saving (news, essays, papers, etc.)
If monetization ever happens, it’ll have to be a direct consequence of real user value. Features like personal podcasts, curated news feeds, better organization and search — that’s what I’d ask people to pay for. Not their attention. Not their data.
Because ultimately, I believe that’s the more honest way. Your customer shouldn’t be your product.
We just need to come up with something else for ABCD to stand for.
Any ideas? 🤔