Cool URIs don't change
remysharp.com
This isn't a new experience, but today I found myself trying to remember the domain to a site that hosted bash aliases. I'd used it a number of times and found it really useful. I tried the URL I thought it would be…no dice. I tried to google words that I thought would yield results…no dice. I even discovered my Google history (beyond the browser history, a searchable archive of everything I've ever googled *and* clicked through on). Again…no dice. Eventually, I remembered. It *was* a , except, as I found through the Internet Archive, it had and vanished back in Jan 2015. Cool URIs don't change. But they sure as hell vanish. But…maybe that's the way its supposed to be.

This resonated with me.

Just like a living system, they eventually die, and that’s the natural order of things. In spite of being a digital system. Something that from a technical perspective is immortal. Quite simply, our sites are us, and like us, they come to an end.

This is a lot easier for me to understand since working at a big company. Even if you made something beautiful and perfect, the earth under it will shift, and it will need to change. Tools and architectural choices that were optimal at the time will be supplanted by better options that could simplify the thing. There is no Buy It For Life when you’re part of a living system.

And speaking of that…

It’s also worth remembering that even though a domain is purchased, it’s really only rented from the registrar.

The Indieweb stuff demands a personal domain as step 0.

A personal domain is a domain name that you personally own, control, and use to represent yourself on the internet.

Given that most people on the Indieweb space are tech people, I get that the fees don’t seem like a big deal. Having been a non-tech person before I became a tech person, I also remember how they’re… not.

In some sense, even if I want to think of the web as permanent, committing to a beautiful File Structure is just more investment into something that I don’t own and that I can only temporarily control.

And what of the barrier to entry? Do you really want to explain to someone you’re trying to get to leave corporate social media that they have to Commit to Maintain their Personal Data Infrastructure Forever?

Maybe we should fuss less about domain names. Yeah, Neocities could go down and break all the blah.neocities.org links, but I could just as well lose the financial resources that allow me to painlessly rent domains.

Maybe we should fuss less about neat structures. Linkrot is painful, but you’ve got to give people room to get things wrong without carrying an albatross of 301s around their neck for all eternity.

Questions of archival remain paramount, but they always were.