The internet has existed for a very, very long time. There are probably millions of people who have come and gone, for just as many reasons - whether death, lack of finances, loss of interest, or a change of interest. Sometimes, they'll leave their site up, because why not? Other times, they can't pay for server space, or they simply don't care to stick around.

That doesn't mean that information should be lost to the wide waters of the web. People still need game tutorials, recipes, guides on how to stitch this or that, image collections, book archives... the list goes on.

The internet is like the modern Library of Alexandria. Everything is here - if you want to know it, you can find it. Whether it's true or not, you can find information on any claim in any which way - but tons of it is lost day by day, year by year.

This applies to anything. Tumblr accounts, YouTube videos, Reddit posts, old forums, new forums. Sure, there is an issue of privacy - maybe someone deliberately didn't want their things backed up or saved by anyone else. People are permitted their preferences, but I don't think there's a fully proper way to handle that kind of exodus.

Art will always be important. Pixels, favicons, buttons, will always be commemorated and passed around. Recipes will live on in someone's mind - just the other week, a tech store employee was gushing to me about a peanut butter chocolate chip mug cookie recipe they had seen years ago. Code changes, but it stays the same - information from decades past have assisted me in creating this website. Beliefs, ideology, and rhetoric spread years ago influenced my writing of this manifesto.

If someone asks for something to be taken down - the best thing you can do is oblige them. The web should be built on respect, and that does include respecting people's possession over what they've tangibly created. But, on the other hand... I don't think it's fair to obligate someone who adores your work to purge any archives they might have.

Have you ever heard the saying, Two is one, and one is none? If it's hard to wrap your head around, it means - if you only have a local copy of something, you don't have a copy of it. If something happens to your computer - IT'S GONE. If you have two copies of something - You have one.

Disaster can strike at any moment. Your computer could brick - your hard drive could stop reading - the cloud could go down - a service could shut down.

Backing up is important. It's not just about keeping backups if a modern version of something breaks; it's important in case a device breaks. The one that holds access to the information. This applies to any and every form of digital media; text, videos, images, games, code, websites, audio... the list goes on.

Preserving and making copies of what we have is a necessity, for our own sanity and for everyone that comes after us. The internet may not have been intended to hold everything forever, but it's almost achievable - it just requires maintenance. Maintenance, in the form of people copying, sharing, downloading, and archiving whatever they can. We are nothing without our forebearers, and we cannot afford to lose what they've constructed.

This isn't just about your own work - though, to be clear, you have the same importance. But right now? We must save the old internet. Now more than ever, we are losing old forums and websites faster than ever before. If you look into any of the dozens of image hunts, the search for the origin of the Backrooms, the hunt for the original Jeff the Killer photo, you will find them combing the Wayback Machine and sifting through pages that are decades gone.

This could've been avoided, if anyone had known what the internet would become - but how would they? It was a novelty, and a delight. Why should they worry about something decades in the future, when they had everything flourishing here and now?

But this is a new era. We understand what we have, and what is at stake. Game cartridges are bricking, people are dying, and censorship is at an all-time high. Anything and anyone could be shut down at a moment's notice.

If you see it, save it. If you like it - save more copies. Download those photos, put websites in the Wayback Machine and archive.is, and commemorate them however you can. The internet is disappearing, but we can hold the line. People want to destroy information.

Don't let them.