obsolete internet

i remember people used to say nothing's ever truly gone on the internet. i think in the last 5 years or so it's been proven just how easily entire archives disappear. i can't even find my own old accounts from even 2 years ago. wayback machine isn't as useful or functional as people make it out to be. it archives a very small portion of the internet and from my understanding, it's mostly manually archived. not to mention, it only archives the outward look of a site, not its actual files.

now when it comes to google, you used to be able to search a typo and find every instance of that typo being used, you could find someone that had it as a username, etc. now, it won't even search the exact term you used, it'll show whatever term they find convenient to potentially get you to pay for a paywalled website or to buy a product. MTV's catfish premise falls apart with modern google and its obsolete engine.

a lot of the internet is indeed archived, especially old websites from the beginning of its popularity. but that is my point. majority of sites from 2014 to now are lost. if you made a tumblr blog in 2016 it's now gone. the posts might be available on someone else's blog that's still active but trust that you'd never find it because google isn't the one that'll send you there.

so what's my point? none really. do i want my own stuff archived? not necessarily. but it's impacted me nonetheless, it has added to this sense of death and grayness that using the internet conveys currently.