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We don't have the ability to preserve all information for all time. Storage media decays, formats obsolete, storage imposes cost, space and time considerations that are non-zero and non-trivial.

If these sites were a special instance of our culture, then fine. But they're not. We don't need every single episode of Eastenders archived for all time to understand culture. A good sample is way better.

These are different times to the classical era. We have a glut of information, most of which, once archived, will never be looked at again, and will only cost money until finally abandoned.




"We don't need every single episode of Eastenders archived for all time to understand culture."

Speak for yourself!


"We don't need every single episode of Eastenders archived"

I'm sympathetic to preserving the shows themselves.

Their promotional pages on the BBC site when they're no longer in first-run? Feh.


I went to a museum once where they just kept everything, I learnt 2 things, one, that the first radio batteries came in more varieties than we have today, and two, never go to a museum that try's to keep everything...




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