Internet archival sites struggling to preserve the internet because of skyrocketing hard drive prices due to the AI boom — Wayback Machine and Wikimedia punished by stratospheric storage pricing and stricter anti-scraping measures blocking the wrong bots

The AI boom has caused a storage crisis, leading to skyrocketing hard drive prices that are impacting internet archival sites like the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Foundation. The Internet Archive, holding vast amounts of data, is struggling to maintain its archives due to inflated prices for large-capacity hard drives. Wikimedia Foundation is also facing challenges in budget allocation for maintaining Wikipedia articles amidst the storage crisis. Additionally, the AI boom has led to stricter anti-scraping measures by website operators, affecting efforts to extract and preserve information for archiving purposes. Individuals and organizations involved in preservation efforts are feeling the financial strain of the storage crisis, with hopes that prices will eventually stabilize.