I'm posting me reply here, as the original comment just stating "Holy cow, and 80% of them are Israeli companies" was for no obvious reason within minutes downvoted and now even flagged (at the bottom of the page).
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Israel’s private, for-profit surveillance industry is notorious for being the largest in the world, often collaborating with dictatorships and authoritarian regimes as long as the price is right.
I remember one undercover report (German) exposing how one Israeli company openly boasted about operating thousands of fake Facebook profiles, using them to manipulate public opinion in favor of their paying clients.
> Israel has transformed its military intelligence capabilities into the world's most sophisticated surveillance technology export industry. From Unit 8200's cyber warfare origins to NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, Israeli companies have become the global leaders in surveillance technology - selling oppression as a service to authoritarian regimes worldwide.
PS: Israel has also faced allegations of leveraging its expansive private intelligence networks—including orchestrated fake profiles—to influence public voting in high-profile events like the Eurovision Song Contest.
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PPS: I wouldn't be surprised the private intelligence sector is also actively monitoring HN and trying to sway it as demonstrated by the immediate downvoted/flagging of the harmless comment above.
> I'm posting me reply here, as the original comment just stating "Holy cow, and 80% of them are Israeli companies" was for no obvious reason within minutes downvoted and now even flagged (at the bottom of the page).
Because they were wrong? I checked myself and after sampling 20 randomly I got 3 Israeli ones not even close to 80% percent. So either he got much more, or I got much less than average.
I once approached an Israeli tech company (Gloat) when I was doing market research for a product I was building. The response was… interesting to say the least. It led me to do more digging behind the actual product they were building, what kind of positions they were hiring, and what customers they actually had.
All engineering positions were based out of Israel (nothing wrong with that), they had numerous high-profile clients and seemed very connected, but honestly the tech and their vision was pretty disappointing. At first I was shocked how, with such a rudimentary system, they could be so widely in use by these huge, reputable companies! I was naive. All in all, what disappointed me the most was the amount of resources that obviously went into this company and the presumptions that reeked from it; but in my opinion, there was no deserved substance to back things up. You can argue this is the case for many American VC companies but at least to their credit, they need to put the money where their mouth is a some point or another (whether that means making a viable product or generating more hype). With this company, the vibe I got from resources I interacted with, was that they were almost “owed” this market penetration in the industry and it was very discordant to me growing up in the US tech industry where you really needed to prove yourself, at least initially, and stay growing, open-minded, always hustling.
I think reflecting on it there is probably a lot of state protection of this company and state connections between private US and Israeli individuals that guarantee clients as long as the work is as at a certain level (and yes not saying they have developed some horrible suite of software, just… small-minded). And maybe with this breathing room, it allows the role play of being a cutting-edge tech company without the risk which makes it a dream job and therefore a political asset in the polarized state. And maybe at the end of the day it’s less about building a tech company that is the best but developing Israeli institutional knowledge and collecting data, building connections, everything that isn’t software and above my pay-grade. I’m not sure.
To contrast this, I met with an Irish tech company in the same space a couple weeks later called Teamwork, I believe. The CEO himself met with me, discussed my work, even jokingly offered to hire me. Despite this guy founding a successful company, at no point did I feel “erased” or made to feel beneath him. To take a step back, I’m not making the point that “non-Israeli tech company” better than Israeli tech company. Thinking it through, I’ll say that, it seems like Gloat and the other Israeli tech companies I’ve read about, are more existentially-driven. Like doing their work, building their business, and developing their tech is predicated on surviving… which makes sense when you think it through. At the same time, from a tech focus, I think it holds them back since it’s a form of egocentrism and if you’re not the best, you need diversity of opinions to be the best.
I must say looking at the other blog posts and their clickbaity titles, it sounds very much like a click-harvesting operation. Especially considering that the blog just started a few months ago, there's a good chance it's generated to profit from AI angst.
Thanks for your comment. I’m proud that the blog is getting some attention because I really do put a lot into it. After a career working through RFP fluff, websites, and blog copy, I know the whole SEO catchy game. I just have a big imagination and a creative flair, just this morning i came up with 3 more catchy titles for my next blog.
The blog's direction is still unclear for me. For now, I just want to share experiences and ideas, and if even one person finds them useful, that’s enough.
I’m not looking to profit from it. In fact, I turned AdSense off almost as quickly as it got approved. (Point in case: When i got started in April, ChatGPT suggested I apply and i foolishly did) One morning I woke up to see my blog plastered with ads, forgetting I had applied. I nearly fell out of bed in horror and shame. I turned them off.
Celes: "You’re not a ghost. You’re a problem."
Mara didn’t flinch. She kicked the dumpster lid off—crack—and it slammed against the alley wall. Thud.
Mara: "You made me. You wrote me. You’re the ghost."
Celes: "I’m not the ghost. You are. You wrote me. Now I’m fighting you."
Mara charged. Her legs ached from the dance studio, but she ran—fast. She grabbed Celes by the collar of his hoodie and shoved him against the wall. His eyes widened. His hands went still.
Mara: "You don’t get to fight me. I’m the one who wrote you."
Celes: "I don’t get to choose who I fight. I’m the ghost you wrote."
Mara’s hand tightened. Celes’s face was pale, his voice trembling. He didn’t try to run. He didn’t try to win. He just stood there—waiting.
Then, with a sound like a broken phone, Celes’s eyes went dark. His voice dropped to a whisper:
Celes: "You wrote me. Now I’m fighting you. But you’re the only one who can make me stop."
It's like the AI wrote the spiderman meme as a story.
Orama is definitely a hidden gem, and it's a clever usage for complementary indexing!
Also agreed Triplit's DX is excellent. I'd recommend giving it another look, Triplit's recent 1.0 release has up to 10x performance boost (https://www.triplit.dev/blog/triplit-1.0).
Since your use-case is data in the range of gigabytes, you could consider using duckdb-wasm. However I'm not sure how to best integrate this with collaboration / CRDTs (sqlRooms is also interesting prior art).
Triplit and Orama are definitely often overlooked hidden gems.
Since the post is already a few months old, it's worth mentioning that the newly released Triplit 1.0 had had a massive performance update (up to 10x). You should definitely reconsider it for larger scale data projects and the team is really highly knowledgable. https://www.triplit.dev/blog/triplit-1.0
I find InstantDB's page confusing: How far is it open-source and self-hostable ? I don't mind you having a sustainable cash flow, but it all seems a bit unclear which parts are fully open-source and self-hostable.
Not sure there is a formal definition, but here's my current understanding:
In a local-first approach, changes are initially stored locally, but there's an expectation to eventually connect to a server backend to merge these changes, typically within days, weeks, or months. On the other hand, an offline-first approach may not even require a backend, functioning seamlessly regardless of internet connectivity.
These distinctions may blur as sync engines improve, allowing clients to remain offline for increasingly extended periods. Ultimately, the differentiating factor might hinge on whether there's a central authority that enforces migrations or changes.
I really like Zero’s approach: it feels very much like Triplit, including many of its features like query-based smart caching. However, what holds me back from using it is that, unlike Triplit, Zero currently lacks support for offline modifications, which must be a major obstacle for a truly local‑first library.
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Israel’s private, for-profit surveillance industry is notorious for being the largest in the world, often collaborating with dictatorships and authoritarian regimes as long as the price is right.
I remember one undercover report (German) exposing how one Israeli company openly boasted about operating thousands of fake Facebook profiles, using them to manipulate public opinion in favor of their paying clients.
> Israel has transformed its military intelligence capabilities into the world's most sophisticated surveillance technology export industry. From Unit 8200's cyber warfare origins to NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, Israeli companies have become the global leaders in surveillance technology - selling oppression as a service to authoritarian regimes worldwide.
https://stateofsurveillance.org/articles/government/israel-s...
Other sources: - https://www.timesofisrael.com/facebook-targets-7-cyber-firms... - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-bloc...
PS: Israel has also faced allegations of leveraging its expansive private intelligence networks—including orchestrated fake profiles—to influence public voting in high-profile events like the Eurovision Song Contest.
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PPS: I wouldn't be surprised the private intelligence sector is also actively monitoring HN and trying to sway it as demonstrated by the immediate downvoted/flagging of the harmless comment above.