Having been on the web since the beginning, I really wonder how much of this data really needs to be saved. Humans have survived until now without the need to keep a permanent journal of every little detail of every persons life. We do have historical luminaries whose works we save, but the harsh fact is that most people just aren’t special enough where we need to keep everything they generate.

We are now seeing that having old stuff resurface is largely detrimental. Back when it was just some photos in a shoebox, or a paper journal, the worst that could happen to your silly teenage ramblings was some embarrassment that you could quickly move on from. Now you face potentially losing your whole career and family because of some stupid thing you said one time when you were in a bad mood.

One of the most important functions of the brain is forgetting. If you were forced to remember everything, especially all the dumb stuff you did, your mind would be perpetually cluttered and you could never progress and grow. You only remember the significant stuff, and let everything else go.

The slow degradation of old sites is the Internet’s form of cleanup and forgetting, and it’s a natural part of the lifecycle.