Airplane Mode
Building web applications with purpose, privacy, and transparency.
About
Airplane Mode is a small software development company based in St. Louis, Missouri. We build web applications that do one thing and do it well, collect as little information as possible, and are clear in how they operate.
We acknowledge that purpose, privacy, and transparency are just words on a website until consistently demonstrated. We also won't get everything right every time, but when we make a mistake, we'll own it and correct it.
Here's how we put our commitments into practice.
- Purpose
- We solve specific problems without unnecessary complexity. Our applications aim for depth over breadth, delivering clear utility without bloating the codebase or the user experience.
- Privacy
- We treat your data as a responsibility, not an asset. Collection is minimized by necessity, protection is enforced by design, and retention lasts only as long as required.
- Transparency
- Trust requires visibility. We document our architectural decisions and visualize data flows so you understand exactly how your information is handled and why.
Principles
Our guiding principles turn high-level commitments into practical actions.
- Define the problem first.
- Before writing any code, we clearly define the user problem we're trying to solve, validate it with real-world examples, and set measurable success criteria.
- Limit the scope deliberately.
- We only add features if they directly serve the core goal. At each milestone, we review what we have and remove anything that doesn't belong.
- Collect only necessary data.
- We evaluate every data field for necessity. If it isn't essential to the application's purpose or legally required, we leave it out to keep the data footprint minimal.
- Encrypt data by default.
- All user data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Keys are managed securely so data remains unreadable even if storage is accessed without authorization.
- Make decisions transparent.
- We record key decisions, the options we considered, and the trade-offs. The details are public so anyone can see why the application works the way it does.
- Show how data moves.
- We create simple diagrams and clear notes that show where user data is collected, how it's processed, where it's stored, and when it's deleted.
Our privacy is rapidly eroding.
Personal data is being collected and monetized for targeted advertising, price discrimination, mass surveillance, and behavioral profiling. Often without our knowledge or consent.
There's no single solution to this complex problem, but if more companies commit to building privacy-first software, users can slowly reclaim control over their data.
Airplane Mode is making that commitment.