If attempting systemic change had been their goal, they could have done plenty of other things: decentralize their dataset, with some distributed hash table, a

If attempting systemic change had been their goal, they could have done plenty of other things: decentralize their dataset, with some distributed hash table, and a minimalistic blockchain for it (yes, yawn) provide randomized signatures by themselves AND gather them from provably randomly selected participants of each page served, in order to testify a page showed specific claims/content at a certain date / time. and so on ... If the internet archive comes crashing down, at least the user base that relied on such services (or whatever simulacra they appeared to manifest) can band together and make such things happen properly, whereas the network effect was all usurped by the IA we know (and love or hate). i.e. those who secure the status quo may regret allowing some greedy "publishers" to deconstruct an excellent fata morgana, the problem with deception is that some parts of the system start believing the overt purpouse of the covert behavior of other parts of the same system. just look at how the soviet union spontaneously imploded.