Clip things into a file to preserve information from the nature of the internet

You should clip things you read and consume from the internet to a file. That is because, by nature, internet contents are ephemeral; domains change, sites disappear, and contents mutate.

Internet Archive exists, we can use that to find reference to archived stuff from the internet. We also should not reinvent Wikipedia.

Steph Ango’s file over app philosophy supports this. If the internet disappear tomorrow (I believe it won’t), the writings you read are safely stored locally in your computer so you can still access it. The files are durable enough for you to export them if you need. You never know when you might want to get back to them years later.

Linking the original source of a file also creates benefits. You know that something is changed years later when you look at your copy that you clip years ago and compare it to the updated source. Storing other metadata like when you clip the content may also create connections to other contents you clip, creating interconnected domains.

This may also applicable to other forms of media other than text: video, audio, images. But, those binary files are tricky to clip and requires more resources: storage, bandwidth, etc.