Saw someone post about Geocities dead links and it hit me how much we lost

Was scrolling through a thread the other day and someone linked to their old Geocities site from 1998. Half the images were broken, the guestbook was gone, and the MIDI file wouldn't load. That site probably had 30 hours of work in it from a 14 year old kid. It made me think about how much random creativity just got erased when those platforms shut down. I know the Wayback Machine exists, but it's spotty. Do you guys think we'll look back at stuff hosted on free platforms today the same way in 20 years?

2 comments

2 Comments

fionarodriguez15d ago

Start with the free platforms that rely on corporate goodwill like Tumblr and Neocities. Those could disappear overnight if the company gets bought or decides they aren't profitable enough. We're already seeing it with all the broken links from old forum hosts and image uploaders, so in 20 years this is going to look exactly like Geocities does now.

christopher_singh9215d ago

Is it really that serious though @fionarodriguez?