I built tech like this at a startup in 2010. It was aimed at musicians but basically the same idea - transparent version control of all of their DAW projects and easy collaboration (sending of huge projects, hard a decade ago). In this case it actually indexed all of the drives (musicians use attached media a lot) and maintained an online searchable archive with previews as well. We’d listen for file system notifications and there was enough logic to understand project directory structure, flac-compressing the audio (while preserving metadata so the it’s could be perfectly reconstructed).
This was only a means to an end though - it’s clear deeper integration with these products works better for a number of reasons, and a much better collaboration workflow isn’t just sending entire directories around. Look at Figma for an example of that - they reinvented the entire product space around collab.
Eventually the company (https://gobbler.com/) pivoted the business model away from this space into plugins.
I’m not convinced the opaque file approach can provide / capture enough value to be a sustainable business over the next 5-10 years.
This was only a means to an end though - it’s clear deeper integration with these products works better for a number of reasons, and a much better collaboration workflow isn’t just sending entire directories around. Look at Figma for an example of that - they reinvented the entire product space around collab.
Eventually the company (https://gobbler.com/) pivoted the business model away from this space into plugins.
I’m not convinced the opaque file approach can provide / capture enough value to be a sustainable business over the next 5-10 years.