A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an article I'd bookmarked in 2014. The topic was fascinating—a deep dive into why certain design patterns work. I clicked the link.
- Not found.
The blog was gone. The platform had shut down. The writing, the research, the years of accumulated knowledge—vanished.
This happens more often than you'd think.
The Graveyard of Dead Platforms
Let me walk you through recent history. Not ancient internet history. Recent.
Posterous was a blogging platform people loved. Acquired by Twitter in 2012. Shut down in 2013. Millions of blogs—gone. Yes, there were backups, but not everyone grabbed them in time. Some content is lost forever.
Medium's Paywall Pivot didn't kill the platform, but it killed accessibility. Articles you could once read freely are now locked behind subscription. Links to Medium articles still work, but the content you expected? Gated.
Tumblr was sold to Verizon, then to Automattic. Along the way, a massive purge of content happened. Not everything, but enough. The site limps on, but the cultural platform it was is gone.
Quora still exists, but content visibility changes with every algorithm update. A Quora answer you linked three years ago might be hidden or deleted today.
Google+ was shut down. Google Photos used to be integrated. Google Wave was killed. Google Reader? Dead in 2013. Google Podcasts? Retiring soon.
You see the pattern? Big platforms are not forever. They pivot, they get acquired, they decide your content isn't profitable, or they simply shut down.
And here's the nightmare: when they go, your links go with them.
What Happens to Your Content
There are three scenarios when a platform dies:
Scenario 1: Clean Shutdown
The platform warns you (sometimes). You get a window to export your data. Maybe they offer a takeout archive. You have a month or two to download everything.
If you don't? It's gone.
Even with a warning, most people procrastinate. Most people assume "it won't actually shut down." Then one day it does, and their archive is lost.
Scenario 2: Silent Pivot
The platform doesn't shut down—it transforms. The old version of the platform becomes inaccessible. URLs still technically exist, but they 404 or redirect to a paywall.
This is almost worse than shutdown. You think your content is safe. It's not. It's just locked behind a new business model.
Scenario 3: Neglect and Link Rot
Some platforms limp along for years. Maintenance stops. Security updates don't happen. Links rot because internal redirects break. Your content is technically there, but:
- Search engines stop indexing it
- The site becomes unreliable
- Infrastructure fails occasionally
- One day your browser warns that it's malicious or insecure
Your content is abandoned, not deleted. Worse, in some ways.
Why Even Big Platforms Aren't Safe
You might think: "I'm using [major platform]. They're huge. They won't shut down."
Let me break this down:
Business priorities change. Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed everything. Medium started with bold ideals about creator freedom and pivoted to a paywall. Tumblr survived but became a shell of itself. Netflix used to have DVDs by mail. Snapchat ditched Stories discovery. Platforms pivot away from features you depend on.
Acquisitions destroy platforms. When a bigger company buys a smaller one, the redundancy is often eliminated. APIs are shut down. Services are merged or discontinued. Users lose features they paid for. Sometimes the entire platform is absorbed and killed.
Profitability is fragile. Platforms that don't make money get shutdown. And many blogging platforms don't make money. They survive on VC funding until the funding runs out. Then they're acquired (and killed) or they pivot to a monetization model that users hate.
Your content isn't their priority. You are not the customer. Advertisers are. Investors are. Shareholders are. Your content is the product, but you're not the buyer. If keeping your content around doesn't make business sense, it gets deleted.
The Real Cost: Link Rot and Forgotten Writing
This isn't just about content preservation. It's about link rot.
Every link you share on Twitter or LinkedIn, every link you embed in a newsletter, every link you send to a friend—it decays over time. As platforms die or change, links break.
Here's what happens:
- You write something on a platform
- You tweet the link
- People read it, share it, bookmark it
- A year passes
- The platform changes or pivots
- The link is now broken or paywalled
- That reach—that audience—is lost
Your writing should compound. A blog post you write today should be findable and readable ten years from now. Instead, you're publishing to quicksand.
This has a cascading effect on your reputation. You tweet a link with enthusiasm. Two weeks later it's a 404. That's embarrassing. That looks like you shared something that didn't matter enough to preserve.
Why Ownership Matters
There's only one solution: you need to own your writing.
Not "store it on a platform." Own it.
This means:
Your Own Domain
If you write on yourname.medium.com, Medium owns that. If Medium changes or shuts down, you lose it.
If you write on yourname.substack.com, Substack owns that. If they pivot or get acquired, your content might be inaccessible.
If you write on yourname.com, you own that. Even if your hosting platform changes, your domain is yours forever. Your URLs stay the same.
Portable Content
Your content should be easy to download and move. Proprietary formats make you hostage to the platform.
Markdown is portable. It's human-readable. It's easy to convert to HTML, PDF, or any other format. If you write in plain markdown, you can move it anywhere.
If you write in a platform's rich editor or proprietary format? You're trapped.
Simple Hosting
You don't need a complex platform to publish. You need:
- A domain name (12/year)
- Static file hosting (free or $5/month)
- A way to generate your site (automated)
That's it. No database. No servers to maintain. No platform to trust.
How Jottings Approaches This
Jottings is built on the principle that you should own your work.
Your domain is yours. You can use a custom domain from day one. Even on the free plan. Your content lives at yourdomain.com, not a Jottings subdomain.
Your content is portable. Everything is stored as plain markdown. You can export it anytime. It's not locked in a proprietary database. One day, if you decide to leave Jottings, you take your content with you.
Your site is static. We generate plain HTML files and upload them to a CDN. No database that could be hacked. No platform dependencies. Your site is a collection of files—the most portable thing on the internet.
No platform risk. If Jottings ever shut down, your content would still be hosted where you pointed your domain. You'd update the DNS and keep publishing elsewhere. Your URLs would still work because they're your URLs.
This is radical. Most platforms lock you in. Jottings locks you out—of platform risk.
What You Can Do Right Now
If you're currently blogging on a platform:
Export your content. Most platforms have an export feature. Use it. Do this today.
Own a domain. If you don't have one, buy one. Register it under your own name. Keep it forever.
Back up your content. Store markdown files locally. Use version control (Git). Create regular backups.
Consider portability. When choosing where to publish next, ask: "Can I easily move my content? Will my URLs stay stable?"
For new writers: start with ownership in mind. Don't start on a platform. Start with your own domain. The cost is negligible ($12-15/year for a domain). The peace of mind is invaluable.
The Hard Truth
Platforms fail. They get acquired. They pivot. They prioritize profit over your content. It's not malicious—it's just business.
The only person who will preserve your writing forever is you.
If you want your blog posts to still be readable in 2035, you need to own the infrastructure. Or use a platform that genuinely prioritizes your ownership and portability.
Because one day, you'll search for something you wrote five years ago. And you don't want it to return a 404.
Start your own blog on a domain you own. Make it portable. Make it yours. Jottings makes this easy.