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I don't understand the negativity the article associates with "hoarding" data. It is the nature of the internet that any content or website you see can disappe

I don't understand the negativity the article associates with "hoarding" data. It is the nature of the internet that any content or website you see can disappear at any moment without a prior warning or an explanation. From an author deleting their earlier work they were later dissatisfied with, to copyright claims, to people losing interest in their hobby project, to site owner forgetting to extend their domain, to website becoming impossible to find in search engines. It always pays to be properly paranoid and have backups in case the worst happens. Storage is cheap, so what's exactly the downside? My personal archive may not bring "the betterment of mankind", but it saves me from disappointment when looking up older content that has since disappeared, and also allows me to help other people find what they're looking for.

zouhair 7y ago
When you think about it is quite insane that you can find rock tablets from thousands of years back with text on them but we can lose all the data on the internet just like that.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  We really should go back to having people copy things on stone tablets, or at least encode them on sapphire discs..
- freehunter 7y ago
  Is that insane? It’s not like every stone tablet or parchment or scroll survived, many were lost. Some were lost immediately, some after a few years, some after a few centuries. Not every word on the Internet survives for long but not every word written on stone tablets lasted very long either.
timrichard 7y ago
One that caught me three or four times was Udemy, where I'd paid for a course heavily discounted on sale meaning to study it at some point later. Much later, I'd go to the course page and find that the author had withdrawn it and Udemy were offering me a refund of the discounted price. All within their rights, but it feels annoying.

zouhair 7y ago

When you think about it is quite insane that you can find rock tablets from thousands of years back with text on them but we can lose all the data on the internet just like that.

vorpalhex 7y ago
We really should go back to having people copy things on stone tablets, or at least encode them on sapphire discs..
freehunter 7y ago
Is that insane? It’s not like every stone tablet or parchment or scroll survived, many were lost. Some were lost immediately, some after a few years, some after a few centuries. Not every word on the Internet survives for long but not every word written on stone tablets lasted very long either.

timrichard 7y ago

One that caught me three or four times was Udemy, where I'd paid for a course heavily discounted on sale meaning to study it at some point later. Much later, I'd go to the course page and find that the author had withdrawn it and Udemy were offering me a refund of the discounted price. All within their rights, but it feels annoying.