Human life expectancy is about 80. A company’s life expectancy is about 15 years. When they disappear they will take your data down with them. You can use platforms for reach and collaboration fine, but also having your own ‘mothership’ to host your original material is about 5 times as sustainable.
There are exceptions to both of those statements, and the first sentence is true or false depending on ethnicity and where one lives. IBM is 108 years old.
I don’t like that gross generalisation are used to make a point.
I’ve been alive 52 years, I don’t think I have seen any examples of “When they disappear they will take your data down with them”.
Sure it’s a generalisation. Average lifespan isn’t evenly distributed and average isn’t the expected cap either, I know. Yet nowhere is the average life expectancy of human beings anywhere near the number for companies (I think the lowest national average currently is at 55, still almost 4 times the average of companies). I’ve seen many examples of data lost however: Hyves you wouldn’t know as it was the Dutch Facebook before Facebook, but maybe you’ve been on Jaiku, Dopplr, Plazes, Ecademy.com, Path, or on Google+ (the closing of which of course doesn’t mean Alfabet’s demise.), frequented yahoo mailing lists at some point, or used a Nabaztag. To name a few from the top of my head. Even if they offered data downloads, which is not a given, anything linking to it rotted. Coincidentally all of those services had a shorter existence than my website. Which is the contrast that I’m highlighting. IBM is 108 years old, but they’ve changed shape several times, and I have no doubt that with the next shapeshift they’ll cut their customers off from whatever services and data those people might be depending on now.
So, the ‘mothership’ is more sustainable, as a personal nexus. Which is why increasingly my posts elsewhere start here, or have a URL here too. (e.g. my few pieces Github stuff have urls on my domain, which are the ones I share.)
Also see this list of site-deaths.