Airplane Mode
Building web applications with purpose, privacy, and transparency.
About
Airplane Mode is at square one. No product. No customers. No revenue. We're not here to promise the moon or claim to have all the answers. We're here to pursue realistic goals, make incremental progress, and build software that respects the people we serve.
We realize that purpose, privacy, and transparency aren't a unique value proposition. That they're just words on a website until 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 values into practice.
- Be Intentional
- We intentionally scope our applications. By focusing on a single problem, we reduce complexity and improve maintainability.
- Be Responsible
- Privacy is not optional. Our applications avoid dark patterns, handle user data carefully, and act in accordance with their stated purpose.
- Be Accountable
- We explain our decisions. How an application behaves, how data is handled, and why features exist is open for questions and understanding.
Principles
Our guiding principles turn high-level ideals into practical actions. Every application is built with a clear purpose, protects user privacy, and is transparent about how it works.
- 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 digital lives.
We're making that commitment.