Why I built Mu

Mu is an app platform without ads, algorithms or tracking. It attempts to remove the addictive behaviours or intrusive usury of advertising found in many products today. It was something I had really battled with for a long time. Like most people born into the millennial generation, I was mostly addicted to the internet, tv, movies, etc. Anyway that technology was advancing, I was consuming the new tools and services. But in my old age (37-41) I grew tired of this. I became more God conscious and started to question a lot of my daily habits. Part of that was my internet consumption. I think many of us are stuck scrolling X, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok or whatever the platform of choice is. As a developer I think that’s even more ingrained in us because of the time we spend on screens but also the context switch when you’re procrastinating or killing time between builds. I’d had enough. This isn’t my first crack at the problem. I previously built Mu twice.

So the why of Mu is clear. apps without ads, algorithms or tracking to fight addiction and usury. But what does that mean in practice, well looking at my own use case, I was on 12+ sites per day, doing various activities across them and consuming a lot of content. I was also a very heavy YouTube user and I’d constantly refresh for new recommended videos. So to break a lot of this habit I built a few things.

1. News headlines - A summary of whats happening, updated hourly
2. Chat with AI - Discuss any of those headlines or related topics
3. Video search - Ability to look for what I need when I need it

Apart from this I eventually added a blog because I think long form writing is useful and a good community tool. Also Mail because I want to shift some of my usage away from personal/work email and have something I can open up publicly so username@mu.xyz exists. And then some stuff around market prices and Quranic reminders, which are very contrasting things. Markets, just because I look at prices for crypto and related things a lot to keep track of what’s happening. And Quranic reminders because the reality is, we are all too often lost in a sea of noise without really understanding our purpose or place in this world, so it’s a constant reminder and pull back as to why.

Not all this will fit everyone’s daily habits but I’ve found myself opening the app 10+ times a day to check news and related things, but I’m here for 30 seconds to a minute max. If I need to find a video that’s a separate issue, but it’s mostly broken a lot of my legitimate addiction.

I’m sharing this because I think others might find it useful. For anyone who wants to look at the source, or run it themselves, link below.

https://github.com/micro/mu