First released in 1993 by FutureWave Software, Flash was adopted by web developers and creatives as a (mostly) universal platform for multimedia content. Large communities, such as Newgrounds and Albino Blacksheep, formed around the creation of Flash animation and games. Flash fell out of favor for its poor performance and security, and new technologies such as HTML5 took its place. Preservation projects such as BlueMaxima's Flashpoint provide a secure sandbox to experience these works as the creators intended.

• Further reading:
• Is Flash Dead Yet?
• Flash: 99% Bad

GeoCities began as a directory of "neighborhoods," or websites with common themes. The company soon began offering free web hosting for users to create their own websites. This movement shaped the early web in culture and aesthetic. In a move of late-stage dot-com bubble speculation, Yahoo! (the Destroyer!) purchased Geocities in 1999. This spurred a decline in the service until 2009, when Yahoo! abruptly shuttered GeoCities with no proper backup. The rise of GeoCities heralded the beginning of Web 2.0: centralized platforms focused on user-generated content. Its demise reflects the current state of affairs: deletion of user-generated content by apathetic platforms.

• Further reading:
• GeoCities on Archive Team Wiki
• The Geocities Gallery
• GifCities

In a move to appease advertisers and streamline content moderation, Tumblr banned adult content in 2018. As a platform previously open to (if not encouraging of) NSFW works, the ban sounded the death knell of "Old Tumblr." This move was seen particularly as an affront to LGBTQ users, a group which viewed Tumblr as a safe space to express their identities. Since the ban, digital archivists have made great strides in backing up content, but no replacement platform exists.

• Further reading:
• "Everything on the internet can be saved"
• What Tumblr's Ban on 'Adult Content' Actually Did

In 2018, Nintendo sued the owner of an emulation site for hosting ROMs of their retro games. The Internet Archive later tested the limits of copyright law by establishing the National Emergency Library to provide waitlist and cost-free access to materials in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, much to the chagrin of rights holders. These cases raise legal questions for archives: What power do rights holders have over third-party archives? Do users have the right to preserve access to abandoned media?

• Further reading:
• Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive

Modern archival efforts, big and small, make sweeping attempts to backup everything. If history has taught us anything, digital media is just as, if not more ephemeral than traditional media. This leaves digital archivists at the crossroads of historical preservation and technical and fiscal conservancy. Do we need to use valuable hard drive space to backup outdated install images or questionable fanfiction? Who’s to decide?

• Further reading:
• Notes from/dev/null