Make Your Content Last

The Vanishing Web #

Remember GeoCities? If you’re old enough, you might. If not, it was once one of the internet’s largest communities - until it wasn’t. When Yahoo shut it down in 2009, millions of personal websites vanished overnight. While some were preserved by archivists, countless pieces of web history were lost forever.

This wasn’t a one-off event. As our digital content increasingly moves behind authentication walls and into corporate platforms, we’re risking a similar fate for today’s online contributions.

The Problem with Walled Gardens #

Today, most of our content lives on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or X. While these platforms offer immediate reach and engagement, they pose two significant risks:

1. Content Volatility: Your posts can disappear at any moment - whether through moderation decisions, account issues, or platform shutdowns
2. Archive Inaccessibility: Web archival services like the Wayback Machine can’t preserve content behind login walls

A Practical Approach to Content Independence #

You don’t need to be a tech expert to own your content. Here’s a simple hierarchy of content hosting, from most to least independent:

1. Self-hosted website (maximum control)
2. Managed platforms (WordPress.com or Blogger)
3. Open platforms without authentication walls (Reddit, StackExchange)
4. Social media platforms (create and engage as usual, but consider adding companion content on more open platforms)

Why WordPress.com? #

Among the managed platforms, WordPress.com stands out as the most ethical and future-proof solution. Here’s why:

1. Path to Independence: Unlike other platforms, WordPress.com lets you easily export all your content and move to a self-hosted WordPress instance when you’re ready for more control
2. Flexibility: Start with a free subdomain (yoursite.wordpress.com) and upgrade to your own domain when needed
3. No Vendor Lock-in: Your content remains yours, and the transition to self-hosting is straightforward
4. Excellent SEO: Posts are well-indexed by search engines and accessible to archive crawlers
5. Free to Start: Basic features are free, with optional paid upgrades for advanced needs

While Blogger is a valid alternative, it doesn’t offer the same clear upgrade path to full independence. WordPress.com provides a perfect middle ground - easy enough for beginners, but powerful enough to grow with your needs.

The Hybrid Strategy #

The goal isn’t to change how you use social media - keep creating and sharing there as you normally would. Instead, when you share something valuable or original, consider also creating a text version on a more open platform:

1. Create content normally on your preferred social platforms
2. For valuable original content, create a companion text version on WordPress.com or similar
3. Continue engaging naturally on your platforms

For example: When you create a helpful tutorial video that gets good feedback, write up the same information as a blog post. The text version will be discoverable through search engines and preserved by web archival services, ensuring your knowledge remains accessible for the long term, regardless of what happens to the original video.

Text: The Universal Format #

While video platforms like YouTube and TikTok are great for sharing and reaching audiences, consider complementing your valuable video content with text versions. Keep creating engaging videos whether short or long-form, but when you share something original and useful, a companion text version (with images when relevant) on your own site will:

• Be easier to find through search
• Load faster and work offline
• Remain accessible to archival services
• Be simpler to update and maintain

This isn’t about choosing between video and text - it’s about preserving your best content in accessible formats to ensure its longevity. Text and images remain the most universal formats, easily processed by both humans and machines.

Why Text Still Rules in the AI Era #

While AI is making video content more accessible through advanced transcription and content analysis - especially on platforms like YouTube and TikTok that have the resources to implement such features - this doesn’t solve the fundamental issue of preservation.

Here’s why:

1. Storage Economics: Archiving videos is exponentially more expensive than storing text. While a comprehensive text archive of human knowledge might be feasible for multiple organizations, storing the world’s video content remains a privilege of a few tech giants.

2. Monopolistic Concerns: This creates a concerning monopoly where a handful of companies effectively control access to a large portion of human knowledge. When most of our information exists primarily as video on these platforms, we’re putting too many eggs in too few baskets.

3. Legal and Technical Barriers: Even if storage becomes cheaper, archiving videos faces complex legal challenges and technical hurdles that text doesn’t encounter. The Internet Archive’s ability to preserve text content is partly due to text’s simplicity and lower legal risks.

4. AI’s Current Limitations: While AI can now understand and index video content better than ever, these capabilities remain primarily within the walled gardens of major platforms. Independent archival services can’t easily replicate these features.

By creating text companions for valuable video content on open platforms, we:

• Democratize information storage
• Reduce dependency on large platforms
• Make content more resilient to platform changes
• Enable easier preservation by independent archives

This isn’t about abandoning video - it’s about ensuring our digital knowledge survives beyond the lifespan of any single platform or company. Until storing and serving video becomes as accessible as text, maintaining text versions of important content remains crucial for preserving our collective digital heritage.

Why This Matters #

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has preserved hundreds of billions of web pages - but only those it can access. When content lives exclusively behind login walls, it risks being lost to future generations.

Our digital contributions, whether they’re local knowledge, technical guides, or personal stories, form part of humanity’s collective knowledge. By making conscious choices about where and how we publish, we help preserve this digital heritage.

A Call to Action #

You don’t need to become a web developer or move entirely off social media. Start small:

1. Create a free WordPress.com blog
2. When you share valuable original content on social media, create a text version on your blog
3. Keep engaging naturally on your preferred platforms
4. Repeat

This simple change in workflow helps ensure your digital legacy remains accessible and preserved for the future.

Share Your Thoughts #

What’s your take on digital content preservation? Are you already taking steps to own your content, or does this seem like too much effort? Share your perspective by email - this site catches all emails @[domain], or join the discussion on the platforms where this post is shared.