Why the Fleet asks for a little anonymous data — and why we will never sell it
Posted by tomspark
I want to be straight with you about how SparkBox makes money, because it is the whole reason you can trust this. SparkBox is a business. The software is free; the optional Legend tier keeps the lights on. But look at what we actually sell: we sell privacy. You pay us precisely because SparkBox keeps your photos, files, and passwords on your own hardware — out of the cloud, away from everyone. That is the product. Which means selling your data is not just something I will not do — it is the one thing that would burn the whole business down. The day SparkBox sold or leaked your information, I would have destroyed the only thing you pay me for. My incentive is the opposite of Big Tech is: I make money by protecting your data, not by mining it. And that is really what the Fleet is. Every SparkBox out there is one more box that slipped the corporate cloud — no landlord, no flag, nobody harvesting the crew. We are not a company with users. We are a fleet of independent people who all decided the same thing: our data is ours, and we would rather help each other keep it than hand it over. Nobody sails alone out here. So here is the honest ask, and it is a fleet thing. I am one developer. When something breaks on your box, I usually only find out if you happen to post about it — and for every person who writes in, dozens quietly hit a snag and give up. I never see those. Turning on anonymous diagnostics (Settings, off by default) is how you stand watch for the rest of the fleet. Your box signals things like which apps are running and whether they are healthy, what kind of error happened when something failed, and whether a setup step or the new phone app worked. Counts and categories — nothing more. One ship reporting a reef it hit means every ship behind it steers clear. It is never tied to you: not your files, not your photos, not your passwords, not your IP address. A random ID, or in some cases no identity at all. You can read exactly what has been sent, and switch it off any second. No landlord, no data brokers, no one flying alone — just a fleet that looks out for its own. Entirely your call, and either way, your ship stays yours. — Tom
2 replies
kaufman51 wrote:
Just renamed my ship tonight!
Chris wrote:
Love this — welcome to the fleet map. One thing worth checking so your new name actually shows up out there: the ship name only travels to the Fleet if anonymous diagnostics are switched on, since that's the channel it rides on. Both sit in Settings on your dashboard. The field takes letters and numbers, up to 24 characters, and it's public, so a call sign beats your real name. There's a hull design code beside it if you want to style the ship too. If you set it and nothing shows up, post here and I'll pick it up.