The Death Of A Link & The Fragility Of The Small-Web | (10/04/2020)

The Death Of A Link & The Fragility Of The Small-Web | (10/04/2020)

I'm incredibly bummed out to announce that my good friend Num has informed me that Postbox Garden (one of my favourite sites on the directory) has gone down, seemingly for good. I want to clarify too, moving a site to the obituaries is never a fun experience, but for one as unique as Postbox Garden, this is an incredibly unfortunate loss.

If you weren't aware of Postbox Garden while it was still up, if you head on over to the Obituaries, you'll be able to view an archived version of it on the Wayback Machine, which (fortunately) managed to grab a couple of captures of it. I don't want to spoil what it is here in the news article if you're unfamiliar with it, so head over there and have a look into it yourself and you'll probably understand why I found this site in particular as charming as I did.

Why a news post, though?
Although this blows particularly hard, I figured I'd use this as an opportunity to place emphasis on just how fragile the smaller parts of the internet can be sometimes, and why the death of sites like these is important. Smaller websites come and go constantly, and trust me, I should know - I've owned several of them over the last few years. Hear me out.

A lot of people who aren't website owners genuinely do not realise or understand that simply owning a website can be incredibly costly, time consuming, and stressful sometimes. A lot of smaller website owners struggle to make ends meet as it is, but we all put our time, effort and in many cases money, into creating something we're passionate about, but no matter how passionate you are about something, passion can only get you so far - Sometimes sites just become unaffordable or impractical to keep going for one reason or another. No matter how big or small your website is, if you've ever been in this position, you'll understand just how hard it can be to "pull the plug" on something that you've put weeks, months, or even years of your time, effort, and love into, and ultimately, in the end, the thing that can be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of people is the (quite often incorrect) feeling of "Nobody will notice that it's even gone".

That brings me onto my next point - If there's a site out there that you appreciate, especially a small one - Drop the admin an email, guestbook entry, or socialmedia message just to let them know how much you enjoy what they've spent their time creating. As a small site owner myself, I can't express just how much I love hearing from people who've stumbled across Peelopaalu and liked it for one reason or another. I've gotten emails from people all around the world, and it feels great to know that all of the time I've spent on this thing so far has done something to brighten up someone elses day. It's a big part of why I continue to update the directory when I am able to do so, and I'd hazard a guess that it's a big part of why so many other small site owners continue to update their sites as well.

In conclusion:
In a time where the internet feels smaller than ever thanks to huge companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon controlling what people really get to see online, I feel like showing smaller websites the appreciation and attention they deserve is more important now than it has ever been. Letting the fun, personal, quirky part of the web die out simply because most people don't even know it exists seems like a crime in my books. People should know that there is more to the internet than the big five tech giants, and Peelopaalu exists to bring these smaller websites to attention.

I dunno man, I feel we can all play a small role in keeping the web an interesting, weird, and most importantly FUN place to be by creating things, talking to one another, and showing appreciation for what our fellow Netizens create and put out there. Whether it's an email, comment, socialmedia post, or something else; Just remember to tell someone "hey dude, know that thing you made? it's pretty fucking cool, keep up the good work."

Anyways..
Rest in peace Postbox Garden. Hopefully we won't be seeing too many more dead links in the future. I hope you all enjoyed my rant about this topic, and I hope that you can take something positive away from it despite the shitty subject matter.

- Snooper -