“future-proof” is a feature I want to see more services offer

Yesterday I wrote a post on how (and why) I migrated from iPhoto to Dropbox. I described the decision as

[...] moving from feature-rich to future-proof. [...]

Wait. “Future-proof” is a feature, and an important one, when it comes to hosting my digital life, like my photos, my videos, my thoughts, my on- and off-line activity.

OK, I know. Nothing is really future-proof, everything will be destroyed in the end. [*]

But I use the term to describe services that are built to last -ten, fifteen, twenty years. Most of the services we use today are built on business models that require fast growth and quick exits. One may say that in many cases, they are even designed to be short-lived.

We may need new technologies or new business models, or both to deliver future-proof services.

Take POSTHAVEN for example. I’m not sure how they will do it or if they will succeed. But they are building a business model and a service around an interesting claim: ”Websites come and go. This one is made to last forever.”

We need to see more services and products that (at least) try to be future-proof. And of course, we need to understand that we will probably have to pay something for such a valuable feature.

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[*] That said, I have to point out that I live in a place (Athens, Greece) where you can actually see things people wrote with their own hands some 2500 years ago.

Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, source wikimedia commons

[**] If you found this piece interesting, you may also like to visit longdata.org, where I collect news related to the larger problem of “long data”.