Unfortunately I have not. I should do better at researching prior art. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but never managed to carve out enough time. It’s great that there’s an open source project that I can simply use.
I am embarking upon a similar project: I’m building a privacy-focused product similar to Google Photos and Flickr. My goal is to not only to develop a usable product, but also to document the process in as much detail as possible in order to enable others to build similar things.
I feel strongly about spreading the skills required to build non-trivial products. I hope to enable others to deliver similar technical projects.
This worries me too - a lot. So much so that I'm working on a video series documenting the creation of a personal photo & video storage system from scratch. My belief is that one way to extricate our data from big tech's catacombs is to spread more widely the skills needed to build out personal data stores.
I'm starting with photos & videos because my own collection is trapped in Flickr, and it may not be long for this world. I intend to build out such a system and publish instructional videos on how to do it as I go along.
Imagine a world in which more or less everyone can do this. It's not such a long shot, don't you think?