It’s an interesting thought experiment. We could preserve specific data if we cared to. But as others have echoed, with dynamic content delivery systems, editable forum and social media posts, and in some cases, the ability to petition companies to delete your online persona… all of these mean that storing snapshots becomes a more complex problem.
So far we have storage media which is probably good for 100 years or so before the physical medium begins to degrade. We then have to ensure that connections (physical plugs, protocols) are maintained or available 100 years from now. Offline cold storage sites exist but aren’t storing information to preserve human history. Any data that’s been overwritten or lost to dead links on the web may be sitting on a tape in a warehouse somewhere, but unless you know where to look and have the right credentials, it might as well be lost to time.
It’s an interesting thought experiment. We could preserve specific data if we cared to. But as others have echoed, with dynamic content delivery systems, editable forum and social media posts, and in some cases, the ability to petition companies to delete your online persona… all of these mean that storing snapshots becomes a more complex problem.
So far we have storage media which is probably good for 100 years or so before the physical medium begins to degrade. We then have to ensure that connections (physical plugs, protocols) are maintained or available 100 years from now. Offline cold storage sites exist but aren’t storing information to preserve human history. Any data that’s been overwritten or lost to dead links on the web may be sitting on a tape in a warehouse somewhere, but unless you know where to look and have the right credentials, it might as well be lost to time.