We are living in the age of data impermanence. There is no mechanism to archive all of the content we are generating efficiently. Soundcloud represents but one of the many websites whose content will be lost forever to the digital dark ages.
> There is no mechanism to archive all of the content we are generating efficiently
While we can't archive all the content, the folk at the Internet Archives* are put heroic efforts in preserving the notable content. If Soundcloud doesn't make it, I hope they at least work with the Internet Archive to preserve the data.
When programming with immutability becomes ubiquitous, this problem will be solved. Immutable systems enable permanent & idealized caching at all layers. This is more of a research topic now but is where we are headed in 10 year timeframe i think.
Anyway, who cares. What about the last ten thousand years of content that nobody gives a shit about.
On the other hand, without them, much of the content wouldn't have been anywhere anyway. So the content is there because they are there. And if the go away, so might some of that content as well as future content which won't have a home.
Most things never made it to stone, paper and magnetic tape. We're recording more data now than ever before because it's so cheap to do so. Sure we lose some, but more information will be created and stored today than existed in the entire world not that long ago.
