I can sum it up in one word, coined by the marvelous Cory Doctorow:
The file transfer world is rife with enshittified products.
When you sign up for the big file transfer services, you’re signing up for a lot more than you expect — like allowing them to use your data for AI training, sell your information, show you ads, track every move you make, flood your inbox, bundle crappy products, etc. The list goes on and on.
FileGate is the opposite.
- We take privacy seriously. We don’t use any tracking tools on our website. We don’t mess around with your data. We’re never going to show you ads — we don’t even send marketing emails.
- We charge a fair price. We don’t limit storage or throttle transfer speeds, and we don’t offer free accounts that need to be subsidized. As we grow, we’ll keep pushing costs down. Tech keeps getting cheaper, and you should benefit from that too.
- We aren’t an exciting tech company. No investors. No conferences. No parties. No sports cars. No debt. Frankly, it’s boring as hell — and I intend to keep it that way.
FileGate is quietly launching with a modest set of features: password protected files, email confirmation, and other basic controls for managing your file transfers. There are plenty more features in the works, and I’d love to get your ideas about what would make FileGate more useful.
My goal is to build a great service for people who need to move a lot of data every day: content creators, photographers and videographers, musicians, editors, producers, architects, engineers, and data scientists.
Go ahead and kick the tires — and let me know what you think.