When I was a kid, my father used to always tell me "Everything is on the Internet! Just look harder!" Over the years, I've come to realize that this was bullshit.
Sometimes, it isn't on the Internet:
- Because your question is so hard, that science doesn't yet have a good answer to it.
- Because you're looking for something so specific and inconsequential, that no one's simply bothered to deal with it yet.
- Because you're looking for something that shouldn't exist, guided by a fundamental misunderstanding in your research.
- Because whoever made it lived a long time ago, and their work didn't survive.
- Because no one preserved it while it was on the Internet.
- Because whoever made it isn't on the Internet. Yes, such people still exist.
- Because whoever made it thought it was too trivial to share.
- Because it's only somewhere in a book no one's put on the Internet yet.
- Because something close to it is. Too bad it isn't a perfect substitute.
Or sometimes, it is on the Internet:
- But only in someone's private archive.
- But not indexed by search engines at all.
- But will soon no longer be because whoever is responsible stopped caring.
- But impossible to find due to being drowned by endless amounts of SEO slop.
- But behind a paywall you can't climb over.
- But not in your country.
- But unusable on your hardware/software.
- But doesn't accommodate your disability.
- But not in a form you understand.
- But it fucking sucks.
- But not all in one place.
And sometimes, you have a genuine original thought.
Don't let the notion of the Internet being a vast sea with everything in it stop you from sharing - it's not even true.