Why I Built Hejme, Part 2: What I Know About Your Data

I've spent two decades building software. I've been a CTO, a VP Engineering, a founder multiple times. I've architected platforms that processed hundreds of millions in revenue. I've sat in the meetings where decisions about user data get made.

Kore staring at a screen at his standing desk

Here's what I know: companies will always extract maximum value from your data. Not because they're evil. Not because they're run by bad people. Because that's what shareholders and the business model demands.

When a product is free, the company needs another revenue source. The only asset they have is you, your attention, your behaviour, your content, your relationships. So they optimise for extraction. More time on platform. More data collected. More signals to sell to advertisers.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. Not even bad people. It's just economics.

The algorithm that buried my brother's vacation photos wasn't malfunctioning. It was doing exactly what it was built to do: maximise engagement, maximise ad revenue, maximise time-on-site. Family photos don't achieve those goals. Calm, peaceful content doesn't make people engage. Outrage does. Controversy does. So the system learned to bury the peaceful and surface the inflammatory.

Your children's faces become training data for AI systems you'll never see. Your family moments become engagement bait, hooks to keep you scrolling past the next ad. Your attention becomes inventory, sold in milliseconds to advertisers you'll never know about.

I'm not telling you this to scare you or to moralize. I'm telling you because I've seen the spreadsheets. I've been in the rooms where these trade-offs get discussed. I understand how the math works.

And here's the thing: it doesn't have to work this way.

So I started building an alternative. I call it Hejme.

But that raises an obvious question, one that's been keeping me up at night for months: what would make you trust a stranger with your family photos?

I'm asking you to upload pictures of your children to a platform built by someone you've never met. That's a significant thing to ask. It should feel significant.

"Trust me" isn't enough. Every founder says that. Every privacy policy claims to protect you. Every platform promises they're different—until they're not. Until they get acquired and the new owners have different priorities. Until the business model shifts and your data becomes an asset to monetize. Until the VC money runs out and suddenly your family photos are collateral in a bankruptcy proceeding.

I've watched this happen to companies I respected. The promises made in year one rarely survive to year five.

Kore asking: What would you make trust a stranger with your family photos?

So what would actually earn your trust?

Here's what I can offer:

No tracking. Not "limited tracking" or "anonymized tracking" or "tracking to improve your experience." None. I don't want to know what you click. I don't want to analyse your behaviour patterns. I don't want to build a profile of your preferences. I want to show you your family's photos. That's the entire job.

No ads. Ever. The moment you introduce advertising, you introduce the misaligned incentives that created this mess in the first place. Your attention becomes the product. I would rather charge you a few euros a month and work for you directly.

European hosting, European law. Your data stays in Europe, under GDPR and European jurisdiction. This isn't a marketing checkbox for me, it's one of the reasons I'm building this in Germany rather than using US infrastructure. After watching what American tech companies do with user data, and watching how American law enables it, I want European legal protection for European families.

Bootstrapped. Built with my money and no VC money.

No algorithm deciding what you see. Your sister posts a photo, you see it. That's the entire feature. No engagement optimization. No "relevance" ranking. No machine learning model deciding what's important to you. Just: new photos from your family, in chronological order.

Is this enough? Honestly, I don't know.

Maybe trust can only be built over time. Maybe you need to see a track record, years of doing exactly what I said I'd do, resisting the temptations that corrupted other platforms. Maybe you need other families to go first and report back that it's safe.

I can't shortcut that process. I can only start it.

What I can promise is this: the business model is subscriptions. You pay, I work for you. There's no hidden customer, no advertiser whose interests conflict with yours. The incentives are aligned from day one.

Whether that's enough to earn your trust, that's something only time will tell.