Comment by arp242
2 years ago
The problem is more that a lot of references will just disappear. It just so happened that earlier today I opened 4 or 5 references for an event that happened around 2009-2012. They all gave either a 404s or just redirected me to the homepage.
This is why I consider these types of archives important: not so much to bypass paywalls, but to ensure content is still available in a decade, or two decades.
The original URLs can go away just as easily as the archive.today mirrors of them, which is why Wikipedia (or any website of record) should contain links to both, IMHO.
Wikipedia - Link Rot : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot
Link Rot (link death, Link Breaking, or Reference Rot) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot