There was a period of time where the notion that everything would be archived was unfathomable to the average user. Sure, in theory it could be. But storage was expensive and the value of storing that stuff was low.

Unfortunately, when DejaNews came out it became clear that at least one person out there recorded everything. Many an embarrassing post of mine was unearthed. When one has tens of thousands of posts and is young & stupid, that was bound to happen. Of course now all these years later I can barely find any of my posts on the internet, embarrassing or otherwise.