Google Reader was shut down in 2013.
At the time, it was the primary interface through which millions of people followed blogs, publications, and independent writers. It created the illusion of a stable, persistent information layer.
When it shut down, the content itself did not immediately disappear. The blogs still existed. The feeds were still online.
But the infrastructure that connected readers to those signals disappeared.
Without that infrastructure, the continuity of attention broke.
Many blogs lost their audience overnight. Others stopped publishing entirely. Over time, the web itself became less interconnected.
This illustrates an important distinction: persistence of data is not the same as persistence of access.
Infrastructure does not only preserve signals. It preserves the relationships that allow those signals to remain visible and meaningful.
When infrastructure disappears, meaning fragments even if the underlying data still exists.