It has become increasingly difficult to agree with internet fossil John C. Dvorak but we’re eye to eye here:
I recently ran into a website I created in 2001, and was disappointed to discover that almost all the links were broken.
Change happens.
If you try to find old web pages on the Wayback machine, you’re in for a lot of disappointment. Sure, there are a few text pages here and there, but because the web is so link-centric, almost nothing links right. Unless it’s in plain text, most of the stuff is missing, especially the images.
Other than a law that requires what is posted to stay posted, there is no fix for this other than a giant Google cache that preserves everything ever created for the internet.
It’s all about quantity. There is simply too much stuff to archive forever. The Library of Congress made an arrangement with Twitter to archive the entire Twitter stream.
That didn’t last long. Why not? Too much data.
The web is getting bigger and bigger, even as it throws away as much as it can. If I want to find that SuperBeets video a week after the fact, there are 20 newer videos, and videos about the videos. It’s hopeless.
Agreed. Here today, gone tomorrow.