Why We Build This Way

The Question

Why build software differently? The industry has settled on a model: collect data, monetize attention, optimize engagement. It works. It’s profitable. It’s efficient. So why fight it?

Because efficient isn’t the same as right.

The Cost of “Free”

Every “free” app on your phone is running a calculation. How much is your attention worth? How much is your location data worth? How much is your behavioral profile worth when sold to the highest bidder?

The answer, aggregated across billions of users, is trillions of dollars. That’s the real business model. The app is just the delivery mechanism.

We reject this model. Not because it doesn’t work — it works extremely well. We reject it because it treats people as resources to be extracted, not individuals to be served.

What We Do Instead

Every product at Michael Craig Group starts from a simple principle: your data belongs to you.

This isn’t a marketing tagline. It’s an architectural constraint. It shapes every technical decision we make:

• Storage: Data lives on your devices by default. Cloud sync is optional, never required.
• Encryption: When data does travel, it’s encrypted end-to-end. We can’t read it even if we wanted to.
• Collection: We don’t collect what we don’t need. Every data point must justify its existence.
• Analytics: We don’t track you. No behavioral analytics, no usage profiling, no engagement metrics that treat your attention as a commodity.

The Tradeoffs

Let’s be honest about what this costs us. We can’t offer “personalized experiences” powered by your behavioral data. We can’t show investors hockey-stick engagement graphs driven by attention-harvesting dark patterns. We can’t monetize through data resale.

These are real business costs. We accept them because the alternative — building surveillance infrastructure and calling it a product — is something we’re not willing to do.

The Products

Our portfolio spans film production, business operations, event management, education, and aviation. The domains are different, but the approach is the same:

• FilmForge keeps your creative work on your machine.
• Merrily treats your team’s workflow as confidential business intelligence.
• DailyFlow stores your notes locally, period.
• Eddy runs AI on infrastructure you control.
• Evvy manages events without profiling attendees.
• Exersly forgets participants when workshops end.
• FlightPulse tracks flights, not users.

Each product is a bet that people will choose software that respects them — even when the alternative is cheaper or more convenient.

The Bet

We’re betting that trust is a competitive advantage. That people are tired of reading privacy policies written by lawyers to obscure what’s actually happening. That there’s a market for software that does what it says and nothing more.

Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe the surveillance model is so entrenched that nobody will pay for the alternative. But we’d rather build something we believe in and find out than build something we don’t.

What Comes Next

This is the beginning. We’re building in public, documenting our decisions, and sharing what we learn. Not because transparency is a growth hack, but because it’s the right way to earn trust.

Welcome to Michael Craig Group. Your data belongs to you. Let’s build something worth using.