Websites are beautiful things. And as we know, things of beauty are a joy forever. Well, maybe not so much. The life of a website is perhaps more like life in the Middle Ages - nasty, brutish, and short.
The drive is for new content, updated content, relevant content... Ah, what happened to content that lasts, content worth keeping, content for the ages?
If, to use another famous phrase, time is money, then a constantly updated website is far more expensive than a static one. Keeping your content fresh requires more and more investment in what is, by definition, ephemeral. It strikes me that there is something wrong with this equation.
Perhaps I am becoming old and cynical, but does the drive for the
"constantly new" generate merely a gush of material of little value, which
in the long run, no one cares to keep? If so, why do it?
I applaud the folks who are trying to archive the internet--motivated by the belief that there are things worth keeping. I was both encouraged and amused when I heard one group had resorted to printing books of webpages, since books are less prone to device failure :-)
I hope our online future is long and happy. I also hope we get hold of the difference between quantity and quality.
Comments welcome.
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