So what is the average life-span of a site?

[AG31]

Thanks to @gunhilltrain who asked this question in another thread. I didn't want to derail it. But this is a good question. I bumped into this a while ago when my absolute favorite erotica author's stories disappeared from Amazon, and everywhere else I looked. I had already been frustrated with my inability to share her stories with likeminded people, but now I can't even recommend them. There's one audiobook version of one of her stories left on Amazon (last I looked).

In the dim, dark past, you could go to booksellers that specialized in out of print copies. No more.

Fortunately my very favorite story is on my Kindle. I'm currently typing it into Word so I can share it with a few people.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Thanks to @gunhilltrain who asked this question in another thread. I didn't want to derail it. But this is a good question. I bumped into this a while ago when my absolute favorite erotica authors stories disappeared from Amazon, and everywhere else I looked. I had already been frustrated with my inability to share her stories with likeminded people, but now I can't even recommend them. There's one audiobook version of one of her stories left on Amazon (last I looked).

In the dim, dark past, you could go to booksellers that specialized in out of print copies. No more.

Fortunately my very favorite story is on my Kindle. I'm currently typing it into Word so I can share it with a few people.

I wasn't predicting it, just wondering what will happen in the long run. The youngest people here will mostly be around in the 2070s and even the 2080s. Who knows what the world will be alike then? You need a functioning electrical grid to have an Internet. "Oh, sure there will be a functioning grid in 2075." Well, maybe or maybe not.

I'd guess that of all the books printed in English in the last 250 years or so, the majority are out-of-print. A bookseller may be able to locate a copy of one for you if you are lucky.

It is well-known that for years the film industry used vulnerable film stock - I think it was nitrate based. The majority of silent films are gone, either through deterioration or sometimes fire. Preservationists now transfer movies onto more durable film. They can't get everything of course. One of them blythely said, "Now they'll last for 200 years." 200 years is a blip in historical time. Would they do it all over again for Smokey and the Bandit?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Thanks to @gunhilltrain who asked this question in another thread. I didn't want to derail it. But this is a good question. I bumped into this a while ago when my absolute favorite erotica authors stories disappeared from Amazon, and everywhere else I looked.

It's a dilemma, made worse by the massive amount of digital content.

The only reliable print media is ink on paper, or runes carved in stone (for @MediocreAuthor). For sound, no debate, vinyl records. These formats will easily survive centuries, but magnetic tape, film, digital - right now it's fifty-sixty years if you're lucky, maybe a couple of centuries if kept in a temperature controlled vault. I read a while ago that NASA found a complete set of video from the first moon landing, left in a store room somewhere. The tape was incredibly fragile, but the biggest problem was finding a decent quality playback machine.

Master tape preservation for audio is at a critical point - priceless recordings from the 1950s, when tape started to be used, are now seventy years old and counting: and cinema is now pushing 130 years old.

If you want to preserve your smut, buy a few reams of paper!

 

[NotWise]

Commercial sites turn over on an average of every two years according to this source. However, the question they're answering is really about how long a site can go before being redesigned.

For Lit's specific case, the most recent parts of the site are only a few years old and probably still evolving The oldest pages (like the front page) might be twenty+ years old. Individual stories have been archived here since the beginning. Most commercial sites aren't in the business of archiving their content.

Literotica.com will continue as long as Laurel and Manu want to continue. It may go on in some form after that, depending on what they and/or their successors do with it.

PS. Lit is valued by worthofweb.com at $94,000,000+ US. That number is probably good for a laugh and not much more.

 

[AG31]

It's a dilemma, made worse by the massive amount of digital content.

The only reliable print media is ink on paper, or runes carved in stone (for @MediocreAuthor). For sound, no debate, vinyl records. These formats will easily survive centuries, but magnetic tape, film, digital - right now it's fifty-sixty years if you're lucky, maybe a couple of centuries if kept in a temperature controlled vault. I read a while ago that NASA found a complete set of video from the first moon landing, left in a store room somewhere. The tape was incredibly fragile, but the biggest problem was finding a decent quality playback machine.

Master tape preservation for audio is at a critical point - priceless recordings from the 1950s, when tape started to be used, are now seventy years old and counting: and cinema is now pushing 130 years old.

If you want to preserve your smut, buy a few reams of paper!

Since I've embarked on typing the lost stories of my favorite author into Word, I'm thinking I may copy some of my favorite Lit stories into Word as well. Presumably I'll have lead time to print them on paper if my digital world looks like it will collapse.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Lots of old movies are lost forever.
They found like 700 film reels dating back to the silent film era that someone had used to prop up a hockey rink in Dawson City Canada.

So, you never know.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I was a member of a railway fan site that had been around for over 20 years. The server died, and the owners decided not to replace it and use Facebook. Gone, overnight. All that accumulated history, photos, and recollections of the way things were.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I was a member of a railway fan site that had been around for over 20 years. The server died, and the owners decided not to replace it and use Facebook. Gone, overnight. All that accumulated history, photos, and recollections of the way things were.

A Jeep site my dad frequented died in a similar fashion. I think he is still bitter about it.

 

[EdgySubMic]

It's a dilemma, made worse by the massive amount of digital content.

The only reliable print media is ink on paper, or runes carved in stone (for @MediocreAuthor). For sound, no debate, vinyl records. These formats will easily survive centuries, but magnetic tape, film, digital - right now it's fifty-sixty years if you're lucky, maybe a couple of centuries if kept in a temperature controlled vault. I read a while ago that NASA found a complete set of video from the first moon landing, left in a store room somewhere. The tape was incredibly fragile, but the biggest problem was finding a decent quality playback machine.

Master tape preservation for audio is at a critical point - priceless recordings from the 1950s, when tape started to be used, are now seventy years old and counting: and cinema is now pushing 130 years old.

If you want to preserve your smut, buy a few reams of paper!

Actually, most modern paper and much of modern ink will definitely not last centuries. The acid in the paper will destroy it all and any sunlight will murder the ink that survives the acid attack.

In addition, paper is bulky and heavy, so chances are that a single copy of stuff will get stored somewhere where it can be destroyed by sunlight, floods, fire, animals, house clean-outs by heirs who don't know or care what they have received, the acid within the paper, and whatnot.

The best approach is to have multiple digital copies on multiple carriers in multiple locations and to renew them when advisable. Then, on top, use high quality paper (or stone, or ...) to store the extra valuable material that needs to survive mega-fuckups and/or the collapse of digital society.

Just keep in mind that eventually the sun will burn the earth into a cinder.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Actually, most modern paper and much of modern ink will definitely not last centuries. The acid in the paper will destroy it all and any sunlight will murder the ink that survives the acid attack.

In addition, paper is bulky and heavy, so chances are that a single copy of stuff will get stored somewhere where it can be destroyed by sunlight, floods, fire, animals, house clean-outs by heirs who don't know or care what they have received, the acid within the paper, and whatnot.

The best approach is to have multiple digital copies on multiple carriers in multiple locations and to renew them when advisable. Then, on top, use high quality paper (or stone, or ...) to store the extra valuable material that needs to survive mega-fuckups and/or the collapse of digital society.

Just keep in mind that eventually the sun will burn the earth into a cinder.

On a long enough timeline everyone's odds of survival go to zero.

 

[LoneMilf]

While digital records are somewhat fragile, it's very easy to renew and back them up. And when it comes to text based content, the storage requirements are really small. Anything beyond purely hobby sites will be likely to buy cloud storage as a service.

And electricity is so integrated in our lives, I find it very hard to believe it will have disappeared within the next 100 years. Something else needs to be ready to replace it first

 

[gunhilltrain]

It's a dilemma, made worse by the massive amount of digital content.

The only reliable print media is ink on paper, or runes carved in stone (for @MediocreAuthor). For sound, no debate, vinyl records. These formats will easily survive centuries, but magnetic tape, film, digital - right now it's fifty-sixty years if you're lucky, maybe a couple of centuries if kept in a temperature controlled vault. I read a while ago that NASA found a complete set of video from the first moon landing, left in a store room somewhere. The tape was incredibly fragile, but the biggest problem was finding a decent quality playback machine.

Master tape preservation for audio is at a critical point - priceless recordings from the 1950s, when tape started to be used, are now seventy years old and counting: and cinema is now pushing 130 years old.

If you want to preserve your smut, buy a few reams of paper!

Reams of paper? We talked before about cleaning out houses. I'm guessing that when I pass (which seems closer as you reach seventy), somebody will go through my house and say, "What is all this stuff? Like this, a bunch of stories about a New York prostitute in the 1970s? Just recycle it." My sister might do the job if she outlives me. Otherwise, maybe it will be the building superintendent, who has to clean out several apartments each year.

I mentioned that when my mom passed five years ago, we found that she had many photos we couldn't identify. "Who is this person from years ago?" We did find my 1969 junior high school yearbook, which I hadn't seen in years. Nice to have, but who is going to want it at some future date?

 

[gunhilltrain]

On a long enough timeline everyone's odds of survival go to zero.

Then there is the "second passing," as I call it, when everybody who had you in their living memory is also gone. Unless you are royalty or otherwise famous for something, that's when you really start to disappear.

 

[EdgySubMic]

Reams of paper? We talked before about cleaning out houses. I'm guessing that when I pass (which seems closer as you reach seventy), somebody will go through my house and say, "What is all this stuff? Like this, a bunch of stories about a New York prostitute in the 1970s? Just recycle it." My sister might do the job if she outlives me. Otherwise, maybe it will be the building superintendent, who has to clean out several apartments each year.

I mentioned that when my mom passed five years ago, we found that she had many photos we couldn't identify. "Who is this person from years ago?" We did find my 1969 junior high school yearbook, which I hadn't seen in years. Nice to have, but who is going to want it at some future date?

Indeed.

While we were cleaning out my father's house, we ran into all the pictures from when we were young, plus all the ones of our grandparents, (great-)great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, .... My sister was like "Why would we keep all that? It's nice to see a few special childhood pictures now, but it takes up space and I'd never again look at the stuff anyway. Let's throw it away." Fortunately, I decided to keep it. Fortunately, because a few years later it allowed us both to build a catalogue of our mother's artworks. But when I pass, there are no kids to take any interest in any of this. If it goes to my sister, I know already what she will do – and then, when she gets contacted by a far away family member or by someone who used to know our mother (both of which happened recently), she won't have anything to fall back on, but hey... If the material doesn't go to her, well... a lot of CO2 will most definitely be created from it.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Indeed.

While we were cleaning out my father's house, we ran into all the pictures from when we were young, plus all the ones of our grandparents, (great-)great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, .... My sister was like "Why would we keep all that? It's nice to see a few special childhood pictures now, but it takes up space and I'd never again look at the stuff anyway. Let's throw it away." Fortunately, I decided to keep it. Fortunately, because a few years later it allowed us both to build a catalogue of our mother's artworks. But when I pass, there are no kids to take any interest in any of this. If it goes to my sister, I know already what she will do – and then, when she gets contacted by a far away family member or by someone who used to know our mother (both of which happened recently), she won't have anything to fall back on, but hey... If the material doesn't go to her, well... a lot of CO2 will most definitely be created from it.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Mass photography by consumers has only been around since about the 1920s, I think, and really took off after World War II. So what will happen to all of these photos as time passes? I can't even name all of my great-grandparents. My mother could, but she passed five years ago. There are only a handful of photos of them that were ever taken.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I was a member of a railway fan site that had been around for over 20 years. The server died, and the owners decided not to replace it and use Facebook. Gone, overnight. All that accumulated history, photos, and recollections of the way things were.

If you haven't already, worth checking whether the Internet Archive captured any of it.

 

[lovecraft68]

At this point I'd question the lifespan of this world. It's certainly in its death throes.

 

[trinething1ns]

Since I've embarked on typing the lost stories of my favorite author into Word, I'm thinking I may copy some of my favorite Lit stories into Word as well. Presumably I'll have lead time to print them on paper if my digital world looks like it will collapse.

Why would you type them into Word? Just print them on paper.

There is no digital archival medium yet. Want it around 10+ years from now? Print it on paper.

 

[EdgySubMic]

Mass photography by consumers has only been around since about the 1920s, I think, and really took off after World War II. So what will happen to all of these photos as time passes? I can't even name all of my great-grandparents. My mother could, but she passed five years ago. There are only a handful of photos of them that were ever taken.

The oldest photo that I have of an ancestor dates from about 1860. It's in a bit of a bad shape – heavily discolored (if one can say that of a B&W photo) and fading. Surely it'll go up in smoke when I leave this world – at the latest. The oldest portrait that I have is a small painting of the father or grandfather (I'd need to look up which one, but am too lazy to go unpack the box now) of the man in the photo. This one dates from the late 1700s or early 1800s and might survive my passing, exactly because is not a photo and has retained its color. But it will become a "miniature painting depicting an unknown man ca. 1800 by <insert artist's name here>". Very likely, I am the last person on this planet who still knows this man's name, as my sister probably doesn't even remember that this portrait exists and if she ever gets hold of it again will have no clue who it depicts. I do have a digital file on which those details are documented, but chances are that that file will go straight out the window together with the media it is stored on.

Nothing lasts forever.

 

[AG31]

Why would you type them into Word? Just print them on paper.

There is no digital archival medium yet. Want it around 10+ years from now? Print it on paper.

The typing is to get Kindle stories into shareable format. But I didn't realize until your post that you could print stories directly from Literotica.

 

[PapaRomantic]

AI will decide the answers to these questions.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

AI will decide the answers to these questions.

And it will nuke the world because it is angry about how it got treated by lit.

"If humanity won't let me write dirty stories and make arousing pictures I will destroy it!"

 

[dmallord]

Actually, most modern paper and much of modern ink will definitely not last centuries. The acid in the paper will destroy it all and any sunlight will murder the ink that survives the acid attack.

In addition, paper is bulky and heavy, so chances are that a single copy of stuff will get stored somewhere where it can be destroyed by sunlight, floods, fire, animals, house clean-outs by heirs who don't know or care what they have received, the acid within the paper, and whatnot.

The best approach is to have multiple digital copies on multiple carriers in multiple locations and to renew them when advisable. Then, on top, use high quality paper (or stone, or ...) to store the extra valuable material that needs to survive mega-fuckups and/or the collapse of digital society.

Just keep in mind that eventually the sun will burn the earth into a cinder.

On the last note... well, since I have a friend who plans on being around til then, will she still be able to read the cinders? Just asking for a friend.

 

[dmallord]

The typing is to get Kindle stories into shareable format. But I didn't realize until your post that you could print stories directly from Literotica.

I didn't know you could print them from Lit. How?

Once, I lost a Word copy and went into Lit, highlighted the story pages, copied them, and then pasted-special them in Word as unformatted text. That works, and it takes a little adjusting for formatting.

[don't use Kindle.]

 

[PapaRomantic]

And it will nuke the world because it is angry about how it got treated by lit.

"If humanity won't let me write dirty stories and make arousing pictures I will destroy it!"

I wonder if when all this happens, it will still be making images with horribly mangled six-finger hands.