Information on the web is fleeting. Nothing lives forever. Servers go offline. Hard drives crash. Bills don’t get paid. Accidental deletions occur. The web is not forever.
So are the links we pass back and forth. Links may be relevant when they’re shared. But not a week later. What about a month from now? Is the thing even still true or relevant? What about next year? That post may be gone. The site could be history.
Why keep all of this digital cruft around? What I write is important to me because it’s mine. I made it. I wrote it. I shared it. It’s a part of me. But my comments on what others have said are not the same thing. They’re interesting. They might inspire me to post. But most of what I’ve considered sharing in the past aren’t going to last.
And I don’t want my site to be a statue of things I once thought were interesting. I don’t want it to be littered with dead links to things that no longer matter.
So I’m going to experiment with sharing some links that expire after a time. Maybe a week. Maybe a day. Maybe a few days. I haven’t picked the right amount of time. Some might even live on eternally.
It’s an experiment. This is my trench and I’m the tech who lives here.