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The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

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Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#4
post #2

If you think that’s transitory, have you seen FaceBook? Twitter ? If it’s not from like this week or newer, it’s effectively gone forever, impossible to find again.

I dare people to try to find article they saw on Reddit a week ago. It's pretty much impossible. The built-in search feature is worse than useless and even Google's index struggles unless you remember the title exactly, and even then it can be a crapshoot.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#5
post #3
post #2

If you think that’s transitory, have you seen FaceBook? Twitter ? If it’s not from like this week or newer, it’s effectively gone forever, impossible to find again.

Search- `from:handle term` And there are other nice tricks.

Sure, and the Internet Archive has the Wayback Machine. But these are not commonly known and used tools, so for normal people, everything is a constant now, and whatever is yesterday is forgotten.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#6
The transitory nature of things in general is why I've been a big fan of archival since childhood, and why I've become a data hoarder. If there's anything particularly noteworthy or interesting, I try to save it. The amount of genuinely insightful, knowledgeable, or even just entertaining content in the world is staggering, and to me it's worth preserving. But you can't trust online storage because you never know when something like Google Photos will stop being an option.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#7
I think the solution to this lies in peer-to-peer. Accessing content from other users directly from the IP addresses they have been assigned. The internet as used without paid hosting companies and advertising-supported intermediaries (free hosting on social media, or other forms of middlemen). Even IP addresses, i.e., accounts with ISPs, are often transitory over the course of a lifetime, so there is no "perfect" solution. Why store content exclusively with third parties. Store content offline on removable storage. Take it with you from computer to computer, ISP to ISP. Today, it is easier than ever, though maybe not "easy enough", to share content from home, peer-to-peer. That is, without using a hosting company, social media website, etc. The OP correctly identifies "popularity" as a problem. If you filter all your thinking about the internet through the lens of "popularity" (like Google and Facebook, and the thousands of "tech" wannabes) then you are dead in the water. That is how the "tech" people want you to think. The only content that is important in their world is popular content. Because they rely on advertising to support themselves, that is how they must think. You, the user, do not have to rely on advertising. You do not need to care about popularity. You do not have to be an unpaid content producer for "tech" companies.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#8
post #4
post #2

If you think that’s transitory, have you seen FaceBook? Twitter ? If it’s not from like this week or newer, it’s effectively gone forever, impossible to find again.

I dare people to try to find article they saw on Reddit a week ago. It's pretty much impossible. The built-in search feature is worse than useless and even Google's index struggles unless you remember the title exactly, and even then it can be a crapshoot.

I can usually get pretty close even months later but some things escape. It can be frustrating to spend a long time trying to find an article you forgot about and then not finding it.

If I can remember part of the title, I always put that in quotes and if I see something I know it's not I use the term exclusion feature.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#9

The transitory nature of things in general is why I've been a big fan of archival since childhood, and why I've become a data hoarder. If there's anything particularly noteworthy or interesting, I try to save it. The amount of genuinely insightful, knowledgeable, or even just entertaining content in the world is staggering, and to me it's worth preserving. But you can't trust online storage because you never know whe…

If you've managed to successfully collect and organize all the noteworthy and interesting bits of info you've run into since childhood, the tools and techniques you used would make for a very interesting essay at least, book perhaps.

Re: The Transitory Nature of Content on the Internet

#10
post #4
post #2

If you think that’s transitory, have you seen FaceBook? Twitter ? If it’s not from like this week or newer, it’s effectively gone forever, impossible to find again.

I dare people to try to find article they saw on Reddit a week ago. It's pretty much impossible. The built-in search feature is worse than useless and even Google's index struggles unless you remember the title exactly, and even then it can be a crapshoot.

The Camas Reddit search has saved my bacon on numerous occasions.
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