I often think about the longevity of my blog and other blogs. There are endless blogs on the internet, where people write about random things and document tiny parts of their lives with no reason. While this may seem unimportant at present, for future generations, this can give a glimpse of how life was in the past. With history being rewritten for selfish gains, these kinds of blogs do need to be evergreen and survive over time. Talking about the technology of blogs these days that are JS-heavy and whether they survive the test of time would be a whole other discussion for another day. But I do believe blogs that primarily rely on HTML/CSS would endure and survive over the years.

While there are sites like Wayback Machine, there are high chances that these services would be taken down by some weird lawsuit from some publisher. So the question arises, how do I ensure that my blog stays online forever? Here are some concerns:

  • How can I keep the domain renewed forever?
  • How do I ensure that my hosting never goes down?

I could set up a trust or something, hoping that it would take care of this forever. But does it make sense to set up a trust for this simple task? So I had an idea…

  • Pool some money from people who are interested in keeping their site up forever. Let’s call this the ‘Evergreen Webring.’
  • All the money goes into a company/fund/trust that manages the fund and invests in ETFs or other financial instruments that give a return.
  • While alive or until they can afford it, all members should pay for the hosting as well as the domain charges.
  • The company provides static hosting for all members along with domain renewals.
  • All the returns generated are reinvested into the company, and the only goal should be to ensure the longevity and uptime of all member blogs.

This might sound like a utopian idea, but I think it can work. The cost of running a server is quite low, and the only recurring charges would be the domain renewal each year. With some proper governing mechanism and active management, I believe it can work.

Just another shower thought !

Thoughts? Comments are open for discussion.

Update #1:

Checkout Digital Legacy Trust by Derek Sivers which shares the same philosophy.