What if the Free Things Go Away?

We take an awful lot for granted. There are so many free services that we use every day that would seriously drop a little wrench in our lives if they suddenly went away. I’m not talking about big things, like things our lives or livelihoods rely on, but the things that allow us to stay in touch and feel connected. It was just a thought I had the other day when I caught a snippet on the radio that intimated that Yahoo wasn’t doing so well. I’ve had my Yahoo e-mail account for at least a decade, I think. I keep all of my personal incoming and outgoing messages to use as a record of my life in Yahoo’s online storage. I figure one day I’ll write a book and need all of that stuff to remind me of events or conversations since my brain seems to retain so little anymore. What if Yahoo suddenly went bust and closed all of its accounts? Would there be any time to back it all up? Is it even possible to back it all up? What about Facebook? How would I stay in touch with my friends, when a large portion of my messages back and forth with them are stored in my FB message box? I don’t even have e-mail addresses for many of them, so having their messages backed up alone would be irrelevant. And Blogger—my online diary. I kept written diaries for the first two decades of my life. I actually enjoy reading them from time to time, as they’re good for a laugh or even a painful reminder of teen angst. Although I don’t get too personal on my blog, it’s still a beautiful record of my beautiful daughter and her beautiful life as she grows up. I don’t keep any hard copy of my posts since I just compose them directly in Blogger. I’m cautious enough to back up my photographs with a double process, though—I load them onto my computer whenever I feel like it, then don’t delete them from my camera card until I’ve backed up what was on my computer onto cd. Just in case. Perhaps I should take such precautions with these other services, but is this little bit of paranoia enough to inspire me to take even more time out of my busy day to figure out how and to back up several years of data? Maybe it should, but I’m hopeful that if these entities were in imminent danger we’d either have time to prepare, or have the opportunity to pay for the services. Seriously, I would totally pay for these (not much, mind you, but if everyone had to pay maybe they’d be able to stick around). I know I have asked it before, but really, do any of you remember what we did before the internet? I guess we just didn’t know what we were missing and used landline phones and passed notes in the hall at school to stay in touch with each other. And wrote letters! Remember stationary? I still have a large box of old blank note cards going back to my childhood. Yes, ignorance is bliss—we never worried about telephones going away, or pencils or pens or paper! I’d love to know what you packrats do to protect your online lives!