2023.04.27
I dunno. As I "hand repost" stuff to my 20+ year blog, I do take pride in the assemblage. And I know it's backed up in ways I control and won't just go away (barring some big events where decades old blog content will be the least of my problems). Ditto for my music. And while there are a several "sync your notes across devices" apps I use and trust, most of them have a good local cache so even if the company went away I could grab data. (I think google docs is one of the biggest exceptions, and I tend to use that mostly just for things I need to collaborate with other folks on)
Hell the same idea kind of shows up when I build software with my "NIH (Not Invented Here)" preferences for relying more on fewer, simpler things where I start simple and build my own bespoke complexities, vs kneejerk looking for a library to solve the problem for me. Like there's a parallel vibe in liking transparent things that I can understand and have a bit more control over.
Back in the 90s, there was a feeling that "URLs are forever". I mean you still have the negative sense of that in "you can't really fully remove things from the Internet" but it was a little shocking when a site went away and took its URLs with it.
Maybe this is all just sad anti-Buddhist attachment to things, as if my efforts to back up files will somehow keep me immortal. Though, I think the more connected you are with your past the longer your life feels, and if your life has been more or less pleasant that's on balance a good thing, so long as it doesn't occlude your feel of the present or work for a better future...
Q1 of this year (January - March of 2023) saw the largest number of Tech Industry layoffs in history. 183,720 layoffs in just three short months -- over three times the number of layoffs we saw during the Dot Com Bubble Burst of 1999.definitely a sobering number especially for someone like me who is going to be laid off in 2 months.
I do wonder about the statistic though- both in terms of the tech industry being a lot bigger now than it was 2 decades ago, and then in terms of the timing... digging into the self-link he provided he looks at the number Dec 1999- Jan 2001. i got laid off spring of 2001, and then again in 2002. So the bright side is "maybe the number is as bad as all that", but that is undercut by "but who knows how long this will stumble along"
Anyway. I guess "'punishable by a fine' = 'allowed for rich people'" applies to businesses too...