A Long Bet Pays Off

February 22, 2022 10:16 AM

Cool news from Archive.org:

11 years ago, on the site longbets.org, a friendly wager was made between two mavens of the web: Jeremy Keith and Matthew Haughey. The bet, to be revisited a decade and a year later, would be whether the URL of their wager at Long Bets would survive to a point in the semi-distant future. That is, this day, February 22nd, 2022, (2/22/2222).

As of this writing, the URL absolutely has survived.

Therefore, the Internet Archive shall receive a $1,000 donation from Mr. Keith and Mr. Haughey ($500 apiece), provided from an escrow account that has held the funds since the day of the wager.

In light of #DoublesJubilee (in which the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has been an invaluable resource), why not make a donation of your own today?

posted by Rhaomi to MetaFilter-Related at 10:16 AM (10 comments total)

Late last year some very online folk of my netquaintance took notice of this longbet. I’ve been waiting for this day since.
posted by Kattullus at 11:01 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

They should donate to zombocom.
posted by jozxyqk at 11:10 AM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

We could donate to Metafilter so we'll be here 11 years hence.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:34 PM on February 22, 2022 [10 favorites]

How cool!

I like Matt's argument and evidence (from 2011, even!): "My oldest sites are going on 13 years old at the time of this bet ..."

I have a handful of domains that are 20 or more years old. It feels good to have sites persist over the hyperspeed passage of a couple of decades of internet time.

Thanks for posting this, Rhaomi - I'm delighted that Matt won the bet, and it's good to be reminded that the Internet Archive could probably use a few bucks from me!
posted by kristi at 3:47 PM on February 22, 2022

Neat!
posted by porpoise at 4:11 PM on February 22, 2022

The bet explicitly references http, not https. However, the http link does work. I assume that longbets.org is making the substitution automatically?
posted by zompist at 4:21 PM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

Um. :)

Yep, should clearly be 22/2/2222.
posted by Pink Frost at 12:45 PM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am pleased to see the results of this wager, yet I am even more pleased that it could serve as a call to action in support of IA which is an institution deserving of both love and currency.
posted by majick at 1:01 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

I like everything about this, top to bottom to side to side; thanks for sharing.
posted by youarenothere at 3:21 PM on February 23, 2022

Ducks.

Custom donation of $22.22 made.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:51 PM on February 25, 2022