Is stuff online worth saving?

One hundred twenty-three years ago my great grandmother's first husband died in a hotel in Kansas City from asphyxiation from the gas having been left on over night (the hotel did not yet have electric lighting). A letter was hastily written on a piece of hotel stationary to be delivered to his wife in the neighboring farming community where she lived.

It is fortunate to me that someone thought to hang on to that note since I have become interested in genealogy and this was a fairly significant event in family history (had he not died I don't suppose I would be around since it was her second marriage that gave me my grandfather).

I long for scraps of anything that my dead relatives, wrote, created, etc. It connects me better to the past — the lives they lived, how they lived them. It somehow grounds me a little better ... well, it's rather hard to explain the draw of genealogy.

Sadly very little of the ephemera of everyday life was kept. I get it. It might have seemed like hanging on to junk mail — like you were a hoarder or whatever, but in this digital era we should be able to hold terabytes of what may appear to be ephemera.

I'm doing what I can – not for ego, I think, but for future generations that may find a connection to their past interesting.

30 years ago there was no digital world. Nearly all information was in physical artifacts. The things worth saving haven't really changed, but the amount of noise they are buried in has. Imagine if that letter was kept in a two ton pile of ad fliers. Sure, someone would find some of those fliers interesting, but you'd have been much less likely to even know about the letter.

>...a two ton pile of ad fliers

Alamy is selling scans of ad prints from the 1850s.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/1850s-advert.html

Ads range from a (necessary, in a capitalist society) nuisance to a scourge, and people justly put up increasingly thick boundaries to shield themselves from their influence. When waning cultural relevance or whatever dilutes that influence, you can more easily see the ads for what they are— often manipulative marketing tactics implemented through often genuinely beautiful art and design. Both aspects are fascinating to consider and the art can be quite enjoyable. Early modernist posters from Paris are beautiful. Watching collections of mid century television ads in the prelinger archives is fun, and tells us a lot about the ways we are influenced by modern ads speaking to current perspectives, fashions, and concerns.

Capitalism would work 100% fine without ads because people naturally compare and contrast options when buying stuff.

All that's necessary is making it possible for people seeking out your type of product to find you. And for revolutionary products, there's word of mouth.

If anything I think capitalism would function better without ads, because I would argue that advertising overall results in less informed customers, especially the modern lifestyle/brand type of advertising that's clearly quite effective at manipulating people.

It’s an interesting question I guess (and slightly worrying that I can more easily imagine the end of the world than the end of advertising). Especially if we take it to the extreme and imagine sponsored listings also don’t exist. I guess incumbents would have a big advantage.

There are second order effects of ads that we’d need to consider. Facebook and Google wouldn’t exist as we know them. Maybe that means some of their research doesn’t happen?