Plain Text Accounting
The recent news about Visa's Acquisition of Plaid got me thinking about privacy and the use of tools like Mint, Personal Capital, and so on. For those not familiar, these tools aim to provide a one-stop view of your personal finances, with features like budget reports and investment tracking. Personal Capital's Dashboard These are really useful features to be sure, but as I've grown as a software engineer and observed more about how companies in the industry use the data we grant them, I've gotten less comfortable with the idea of data aggregators having free rein in my bank account.