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by gmuslera 592 days ago
100 years is too long. Maybe not because the company or institution where you will host it directly or indirectly will vanish (the Lindy effect matters choosing one), but because we, as internet and its users, moved on. The changes are accelerating, in the last very few years AIs are being used as search engines and providing content, new generations doesn't read so much (as they consume things like Instagram or TikTok), and that is a relatively recent development.

You may still find user pages on universities that goes back to the early 90's, before that simply there was no web, and that was just 30 years back, 10 years earlier was the start of TCP/IP, mail and DNS protocols. But 20 years later from now things may be very different to what we know so far.

Maybe it would be for the better to ride the waves, and instead of doing things like we did till a few years back, rely on AIs or other systems that will hold that knowledge somewhat and that can be interacted with. And hope that where you put the today's style static web page with your book addendum gets indexed by them and used when the consumer of the content you created request it somehow.

3 comments

Indeed, I would be very surprised if the concept of visiting a webpage is even a thing in 100 years. Perhaps in some archival sense, but I really do not think the average person will have any experiences accessing any variation of “somewebsite.com” at all.

You cannot fight change, and you cannot fight your own impermanence. And so what if it does last 100 years, then what? Should it last 200? 1000? 1,000,000? Just be, and be happy. Live, laugh, love is wiser advice than you’d think.

You might find this perplexing, but trust me when I say that the kind of legacy that needs to endure centuries, and VC wet dreams like AI are totally disjunct domains.
> 100 years is too long.

The Long Now Foundation would like to have a word.

The Long Now Foundation has existed for less than 30 years. They have some lofty goals, but they're just goals.
Their main goal is education, and since you didn't ask, seems like they've been successful with you.

It's not like they sell web hosting that I'm trying to get OP to use.