We spend so much time "building" the future of the web—AI, VR, the Metaverse. We treat the past as a junkyard.
Last week, I fell into a rabbit hole I still haven’t climbed out of.
When I look at the Internet Archive, I am not just looking at old websites. I am looking at the digital equivalent of a 500-year-old oak tree. It has survived link rot, server crashes, and corporate buyouts. virgin forest internet archive
There is a phrase ecologists use that has always broken my heart a little:
Because once a digital forest is clear cut, you can't plant a new one that feels the same. You can only visit the archive. We spend so much time "building" the future
It refers to a woodland that has never been logged, cleared, or touched by industrial tools. It is old growth. It is the original code of the land, running on its own natural operating system, undisturbed by the saw and the surveyor’s map.
Save the URL. Save the weird. Save the old growth. When I look at the Internet Archive, I
But the ? That is the old growth.