| We are told that content posted on the Internet lasts forever. This is an oversimplification. While some content can last for decades, nothing is eternal, not even on the Internet. The whole truth is that content survives only as long as some person or organization is willing to pay to host it. Servers, electricity, and network bandwidth cost money. Hosting ,electricity, and bandwidth are cheap. it is more likely someone will forget to renew the domain than not be able to afford it. What survives is completely dependent upon the values, tastes, and perspectives of the parties hosting it. Much of what the Internet contains has an extremely short shelf-life when compared to the rest of history. yeah that's cause the stuff you see is the stuff that survived. Most artifact are lost or destroyed. For many of us, perhaps for most of us, much of what we post will be more or less hidden in obscurity until it finally disappears forever. And, very likely our most profound insights will have the briefest endurance in a society that seems to value only small ideas, easily digested But the consequences of having your stuff be visible can be great and there is no guarantee it will vanish on its own in any reasonable time frame. Mirror repositories can index content long after it has been deleted by the original owner. This person vastly underestimates how permanent the internet is. |
Sure, publish your personal data and it's on the internet forever, but publish a well thought out essay on identity over time and it's easily lost. Media is much, much worse.