> I’ve often thought about getting together with some friends to pay into a fund to house our websites after we die. I don’t think setting that up would be too hard — the math around insurance policies of this sort is quite simple — I mostly haven’t tried to set something like this up just since it’s a pretty morbid ask. But, if you’d be interested, maybe reach out to me?
> Our ghosts could live forever, if we help each other.
I love this idea and would gladly assist in the effort, let's set it up :)
the year is 2122 and all the "good" (short, memorable) DNS names are owned by ghosts. in the grim dark future, there is only joe_smith_from_minneapolis_born_2055.com
> Q: Do I get interest on my deposit? A: No[, but...] We periodically reevaluate this situation, because we think a web account that runs forever purely off of its own interest is a pretty cool idea.
NFSNet also has an interesting part in their FAQ in response to the question If I think services you host are currently unavailable due to lack of funds; is there anything I can do?, they outline a process whereby third-parties can fund a hosted service by creating an account themselves, depositing funds into their own account (NFSNet services are prepaid instead of billed after the fact), and then submitting a manual (but free) request to transfer those funds to the original accountholder based on the service's domain name. I've always thought this was interesting because in theory someone could set up a community, disappear, and then the community could step up to keep it funded long enough for the person to get out of the hospital/be rescued at sea/etc, so long as the infrastructure is solid enough to remain operational without being attended to (not vulnerable to exploits, etc.)
They've also got a policy where if the member who operates the service is a willing participant, they can publish their NearlyFreeSpeech.Net account ID and have donors add funds to cover 100% of service costs via automated transfers. <https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#Lifeboat>
> Our ghosts could live forever, if we help each other.
I love this idea and would gladly assist in the effort, let's set it up :)