Nothing is Forever, Especially Online

 One day someone "reskeeted" this meme.  While the writing isn't great, I got the point of it. 

When the Internet started, there was this naive belief that your posts could last forever, long after you.  Of course that was when "the Internet" was pretty much universities and government entities.  So most of it was public.  But that didn't last long once the World Wide Web took over and all these Internet Service Providers began selling access to the Internet.  Instead of schools and government departments, most of the server space was owned by companies.

And it's only gotten worse since then.  If you think about it, pretty much everything you access online is owned by a big tech company, media conglomerate, some other company, or a private firm.  This blog, your Facebook/X/BlueSky/Instagram/etc, and everything in "the Cloud" is on servers owned by someone else.  And that means it only exists as long as they want it to.

My first websites were through AOL's hosting.  When AOL decided to eliminate free website space, my sites were gone.  The only way any of it survives is that I saved it on my computer and have it backed up.  People with Geocities sites pretty much faced the same thing in the 2000s when the sites they created in the 90s vanished.  Some have been preserved elsewhere, but most have been eliminated--including mine!  Whatever mine was.

What the meme refers to is first how WB chose to destroy Batgirl and Coyote v Acme for a tax break instead of putting them on streaming or in theaters.  Those movies were pretty much complete but now they've disappeared--probably forever.

I'm not sure what the second part refers to but think of Elon Musk buying Twitter a couple years ago and taking it private.  And then making a bunch of boneheaded changes to it.  Which he can do without answering to anyone because he bought it so it's his toy to play with.

And of course I talked about how Amazon deleted all of my reviews for no real reason and then did it to Ethan Cooper--and probably others--as well.  Over 20 years of reviews gone in a flash.  In the same way I've had lots of books blocked, which means they just disappeared without even a tax break for me.

Streaming services like Netflix, MAX, and Disney+ have pulled shows and movies--possibly never to return.  And of course some movies and shows jump from one service to another like a shell game so you might be able to watch them one month and not the next.  Even my beloved Rifftrax app has pulled some movies because of licensing issues so favorites like Megaforce, Nightmare at Noon, and McBain have all but vanished.

While we all labor under the delusion we own our blog posts, social media posts, videos, books, movies, and whatever else, in reality they're really only allowed to exist at some company's discretion. If tomorrow someone at "Alphabet" decides to nuke my blog, there's nothing I can do about it.  And neither can you if you have a blog.  Like Amazon they can cover themselves with nebulous "Terms of Service" that no one actually reads before agreeing to.  Basically it's their world and you're just living in it. We're all playing in an amusement park that's owned by some rich dude who could decide to shut it down at any time.

So you might think that if you put something online, especially in "the Cloud," it'll live on long after you, but in reality what you put online could be destroyed in a second if someone decides to pull the plug.  It's basically like putting it in a bank's safe deposit box; it can last a long, long time there but if the bank fails, you can end up high-and-dry.  You could buy your own server, but that would last only as long as you can pay the bills.

If you want something to really last, you're still probably better off keeping a physical copy somewhere.  Maybe bury it somewhere.  It's really about as safe as the Internet in the long run.