With things shifting around the internet the past year, and also just…Having been on the internet for awhile now, I feel like this saying, while decent as a cautionary measure…May not really hold up past that. Am I being a little naive though?
Is some decade(s) old post of mine from some old forum really still floating around somewhere out there on some random old server chugging along?
I feel like even in the corporate web, a bunch of that old data’s probably been long lost courtesy of costcutting measures and businesses going under.
It is surely less accurate than it was presented to be a decade ago. I have searched for info I knew it was online 10 years ago, and most of it is either lost entirely, or Google is useless nowadays and can’t find it anymore
Yes, links die. Servers die without being backed up by the other. But there is a higher chance that someone saved anything juicy… nudes, sensitive info you shared, etc. There are also a number of archive team type groups that have backups in the 50-100 terabyte range that aren’t actually on the web for viewing, but if you can find it in the torrent you can download it.
I don’t think it was ever intended in the sense that content, once online, will always be available online.
Just that, once posted, it’s now in storage that you have no control over. Even if the original is removed, it can still be in any number of different places; anything from intentional private collections, to random webserver caches. It can re-apear in the public eye at anytime, you just need to combine someone that’s got a copy with a reason to post it again.
Posting content online is relinquishing control of its existence.