In 2019, MySpace disclosed that it had lost over 50 million songs during a server migration. The data, uploaded between 2003 and 2015, was permanently deleted.
For many artists, MySpace was the primary platform where their early work existed. These were not copies of physical releases. They were original recordings, uploaded directly by the artists themselves.
When the infrastructure failed, the recordings disappeared.
The artists still existed. References to the music still existed. Mentions in interviews, links in blogs, memories among listeners. But the recordings themselves were gone.
The signals had existed. But they were never anchored in infrastructure designed for persistence.
This revealed a structural reality: platforms optimise for delivery, not preservation.
Without infrastructure that treats identity and continuity as first-class concerns, digital history remains fragile.
Persistence is not a default property of digital systems. It is something infrastructure must actively create.