The internet never forgets
Or how it sometimes does, actually
“The internet never forgets.”
The phrase is deeply embedded in our shared consciousness. It hovers and buzzes around us every time we consider sharing a photo, posting a Tweet, or leaving a comment, whispering that the content will be there forever, that it could come back and haunt us, so be very very very very careful.
But that’s not true, really, is it? The internet does forget. Things do disappear. Articles are taken down. Profiles are wiped away. Where’s your MySpace account now, bud? Is it here in the room with us?
But “the internet never forgets” is also not entirely untrue. There is merit to the saying. The world’s first website is still (sorta) running. And, when Earth is finally vaporised, Rick Astley will still be somewhere, dancing, singing, rickrolling. Some parts of the internet really are forever.
This digital dichotomy between the permanence and ethereality of the online world is fascinating. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, whether that’s through the disappearance of old digital photos or the way the online world can retain echoes of long-closed physical businesses.
Today, though, we’re looking at another intriguing wrinkle in this ongoing tussle: The Next Web (TNW) is shutting down. Soon, according to insiders, the entire website will go offline.
A fair few readers of The Rectangle will remember my TNW days. I joined the news organisation in 2018 as a reporter and, after several excellent years, I left as the managing editor in 2023. TNW was hugely influential to me. My career, my writing, and my continuing adventures as a “Human Being” would all be different without the place.
But I digress. This piece isn’t about tales from that time (my pal and former TNW colleague Matthew Hughes did a great job of that already), instead it’s dealing with a different question: what’s the nature of memory online?
If TNW does entirely shut down, it will be a relative rarity in the online media world. While there are some news sites that went completely dark (AnandTech for example), the broader trend involves rolling back services or selling the brand to a different company. For example, VICE restricted its writing output, places like Gizmodo and Lifehacker shut down local offices, and ReadWrite was purchased and turned into an iGambling publication.
What I’m getting at here is much of the legacy content on these sites still exists. Publications may roll back their services, but remain online. Reportedly, this won’t happen when The Financial Times winds down TNW. The articles on the site will no longer exist. Large amounts of my work will disappear. My writing, editing, videos, podcasts, event and moderating recordings, sponsored content, and more will simply cease to exist. Over five years of work, gone.
For some industries, this isn’t a huge deal, but for a writer? One who has worked predominately in digital? It’s a little like smashing a sculptor’s statues and dancing in the dust. Things would be a little different if I was a journalist in the days of printed media (imagine having actual! copies! of! your! writing!), but I wasn’t and I’m not.
When the news broke, panic ensued. This turned out to be needless, because what the internet takes, it gives in equal measure. But there’s a cost. There’s always a cost.
Before we get there though, the solution to my disappearing articles. And here it is: Authory.
Recommended by a friend (thanks Tom!), Authory is a portfolio site that collects, collates, and downloads articles from a specific byline on sites. And it works well. Much of my work was saved. But this is where we circle back to the cost. As in, an actual cost. A subscription.
To use Authory and keep my articles stored, I need to pay a monthly fee. For as long as I want my public writing career to exist, which, to be honest, is pretty much the rest of my life, I need to part with cash for the privilege.
The internet lasts forever; as long as you pay.
The earlier comparison with physical media is relevant here. If I was a magazine writer, I could buy a few copies, store them in a box somewhere, and they’d likely last the rest of my lifetime.
It’s through this lens we can perhaps get a glimpse into the dichotomy between the online world’s permanence and ethereality, and come closer to understanding it.
In a sense, many of us view the online world as something akin to an atmosphere, this flowing thing that’s all around us, tangible and intelligible at the same time — but that’s not the case.
While digital files don’t degrade like paper, they are just as real. A digital file is a physical thing, something stored in cells you could touch and see. You may need a conduit to view them, but they’re there, contained in physical objects, objects that read and write a certain area in order to retrieve that data.
What separates a book or paper or magazine from a digital file is physicality. Something “real” is printed and remains static, a digital file, as intaginable as it seems, is stored in a machine that is in constant motion, reading and writing vast swathes of information whenever active.
A book may discolour over time, it may get worn, the page corners bent and the cover dented, but it won’t simply disappear one day in a flash or an error. It will remain, slowly degrading, rather than breaking into a thousand different pieces once it reaches the end of its life.
We may think digital files exist in a digital space, but they’re stored on physical objects, and physical objects break down and cost money to repair and maintain.
This, I think, is where this discordance between the permanent and the ethereal comes from.
Digital files have the potential to last longer than any book and so much more information can be stored in their form factor, but this data is also more vulnerable to disappearing, to being replaced with something else. Or maybe even all your writing being deleted, or something like that at least.
Intriguing? Sure. It’s a glimpse into a contradiction at the middle of our world, but what does any of this actually mean?
Let me sum it up: you can’t rely on the internet remembering what’s important to you.
Back. Your. Shit. Up.
Unless, of course, you did something bad. Then there is literally no escape.
The one exception to both of these things though? Paying. On the internet, with cash, anything is possible.