Origin: The Fermi Paradox
The term "Great Filter" originates in cosmology, specifically Robin Hanson's hypothesis about why we haven't detected alien civilizations. The idea: there's a critical developmental stage (a "filter") that most civilizations fail to pass—perhaps nuclear war, climate collapse, or AI alignment failure.
In archaeobytology, the Great Filter describes the same phenomenon in the digital realm: a technological barrier that most artifacts fail to survive.
How Filters Work
A Great Filter is not a single catastrophic event (like a hard drive crash). It's a systemic change that makes continued support unsustainable:
Hardware Obsolescence
The physical platform disappears:
- Floppy disks → CDs → USB drives → Cloud storage
- Parallel ports → USB-A → USB-C → Wireless
- 32-bit processors → 64-bit processors (32-bit apps stop working)
When the hardware vanishes, artifacts that depended on it become Petribytes.
Software Platform Shifts
The operating environment changes:
- DOS → Windows 3.1 → Windows 95 → Windows XP → Windows 10
- Classic Mac OS → Mac OS X (PowerPC) → macOS (Intel) → macOS (Apple Silicon)
- Flash Player → HTML5 Canvas
Each transition is a filter. Apps written for DOS don't run on modern Windows without emulation.
Protocol/Standard Deprecation
The communication language becomes unsupported:
- FTP → SFTP/HTTPS
- HTTP → HTTPS (sites without SSL certificates are flagged as "Not Secure")
- IPv4 → IPv6 (ongoing, slow filter)
Codec/Format Wars
Competing standards battle; losers become extinct:
- Betamax vs. VHS → VHS won (Betamax became Petribyte)
- HD DVD vs. Blu-ray → Blu-ray won
- .ogg vs. .mp3 → .mp3 won (despite .ogg being technically superior)
- Flash vs. HTML5 → HTML5 won (Flash became Petribyte in 2020)
Characteristics of a Great Filter
Not every technological change qualifies as a Great Filter. True Filters share these traits:
1. Mass Obsolescence
Millions of artifacts become unusable simultaneously. Individual file corruption is not a Filter; industry-wide abandonment is.
2. No Backward Compatibility
The new system doesn't support the old artifacts. If modern Windows still ran DOS programs seamlessly, DOS → Windows wouldn't be a Filter.
3. Economic Unsustainability
Maintaining support for the old system becomes too expensive. Companies choose to let it die rather than bear the cost.
4. Network Effect Collapse
Once enough users migrate to the new system, the old one becomes a ghost town. Remaining users are forced to follow or be left behind.
Historical Great Filters
Filter #1: The Flash Extinction (2020)
What Died: Adobe Flash Player and all .swf files that depended on it.
Why: Security vulnerabilities, rise of HTML5, Apple's refusal to support Flash on iOS.
Casualties: Educational games, interactive animations, web-based art projects, Newgrounds archives.
Survivors: Internet Archive's Ruffle emulator (heroic preservation effort).
Filter #2: The iPhone App Purge (2017)
What Died: 32-bit iOS apps when Apple moved to 64-bit-only iOS 11.
Why: Apple wanted to drop legacy code support.
Casualties: Thousands of indie games and apps abandoned by developers who couldn't afford to update.
Survivors: Apps with active maintenance; everything else became Petribytes.
Filter #3: The Python 2/3 Schism (2008-2020)
What Died: Python 2 codebases that weren't migrated to Python 3.
Why: Python 3 broke backward compatibility to fix language design flaws.
Casualties: Legacy Python 2 scripts (now require interpreters that are no longer maintained).
Survivors: Projects that migrated or used compatibility libraries (e.g.,
six).
Filter #4: The GeoCities Deletion (2009)
What Died: Millions of personal websites when Yahoo! shut down GeoCities.
Why: Yahoo! couldn't monetize free hosting; Web 2.0 platforms (MySpace, Facebook) replaced personal sites.
Casualties: An entire epoch of web culture—personal homepages, fan sites, early web art.
Survivors: Archive Team's "GeoCities Torrent" (11 TB rescue archive).
Surviving the Filter
Some artifacts pass through Great Filters. What allows survival?
Open Standards
HTML survived because it's an open standard. No single company controls it, so no single bankruptcy can kill it.
Community Stewardship
When official support ends, user communities can keep artifacts alive (e.g., DOSBox for DOS games, Ruffle for Flash).
Emulation Layers
Compatibility modes and virtual machines let old software run on new systems (e.g., Wine for Windows apps on Linux).
Timely Migration
Projects that adapt before the Filter activates survive. Python projects that migrated to Python 3 early avoided the crisis.
Simplicity
Artifacts with minimal dependencies survive better. A .txt file doesn't need Flash Player, a specific OS, or a patent license.
The Archaeologist's Role
Archaeobytologists study Filters to:
- Predict Future Filters: What's the next Flash? (Possible candidates: Electron apps, cloud-only services, blockchain NFTs)
- Rescue Efforts: Identify at-risk artifacts before the Filter activates
- Document Extinctions: Record what was lost and why, so future builders learn
- Advocate for Resilience: Push for backward compatibility, open standards, and migration paths
Field Notes
The "You'll Own Nothing" Filter: The shift from ownership (files you download) to access (streaming services) is an ongoing Filter. When Netflix removes a show, it's gone—you never owned it. This is a slow-motion extinction event for user-controlled media.
The AI Training Filter (Speculative): As AI-generated content floods the web, search engines may deprioritize or ignore "old" human-created content. This would be a Filter that doesn't delete artifacts but renders them invisible—a transition from Vivibyte to Umbrabyte.
The Cloud Dependency Filter (Active): Apps that require internet connectivity and cloud services are vulnerable. When the service shuts down (Google Reader, Vine, Mixer), the app becomes a Petribyte. Local-first software survives; cloud-tethered software doesn't.
The Paradox of Progress
Great Filters are often seen as "progress"—Flash was slow and insecure, so HTML5 was better. But each Filter leaves casualties:
- Art that only existed in Flash
- Educational tools built for Python 2
- Games that only ran on 32-bit iOS
Progress and preservation are in tension. The archaeologist's job is not to stop progress, but to document the cost and advocate for gentler transitions.