Persistwise: writing that outlasts the platform

I have a bad habit with blogs. I start one somewhere that feels right, write for a while, then the platform changes, the export is a mess, and the old posts sit there like a burned CD nobody can play. Geocities. LiveJournal. A host that quietly folded. Same movie, different sequel.

So I built Persistwise, and today I’d like to invite you to try it.

persistwise.com · Start a free trial

What it does

Persistwise is not another place to write. You keep blogging wherever you already do: HEY World, Substack, your own site, a newsletter, even a social feed. You give Persistwise the feed, and it does the quiet filing in the background.

It checks your feeds every 15 minutes. When it finds a new post, it keeps three copies:

• A Wayback Machine snapshot. Persistwise asks the Internet Archive to capture the post. That snapshot lives on archive.org, it’s public, and anyone can open it without Persistwise.
• An IPFS pin. The saved copy is pinned through Pinata onto the public IPFS network, with a content ID that points at that exact copy of your post.
• A saved copy we keep. The post’s HTML is stored on our own storage, so there is something to fall back on when an outside service is slow or down. Only you can open it.

Your Archive page shows one line per post, with a link to each copy and a plain status for each one. If the Wayback Machine is busy, Persistwise waits and tries again later, so you don’t have to babysit anything.

RSS, Atom and JSON Feed all work. The first check takes in every post your feed lists at that moment, then new posts get picked up as they appear.

Why I wanted it

Most of us don’t lose writing because we’re careless. We lose it because the web is a rental. The landlord changes the locks, the feed dies, the pretty URL turns into a 404. The Wayback Machine is wonderful, but it only saves what someone asks it to save. I wanted a boring, stubborn librarian whose only job is to ask every time.

I also didn’t want to build another editor. I already have places I like to write, and so do you. The whole point is that you don’t have to move.

Keep: 30 days free, then $40 a year

There is one plan, called Keep. It’s 30 days free, then $40 a year, and you don’t need a card to start. Create an account, press “Start free trial,” and add your feed.

About three days before the trial ends, we’ll email you if you haven’t added a card. If you decide not to keep going, Keep pauses and nothing is deleted. Your Archive page stays readable, and your Wayback snapshots and IPFS pins stay where they are. The Wayback snapshots are kept by the Internet Archive, not by us, so they don’t depend on Persistwise at all. We don’t delete people for leaving.

A yearly price felt right for something meant to last. Longevity and a monthly habit you cancel in February don’t get along very well.

Honest notes

It’s early, and I’d rather tell you the edges up front. Each post is captured once, when Persistwise first sees it, so later edits aren’t saved. The copies are the page’s HTML only, without images or stylesheets, so they may look plainer than the original. There’s no export button yet. And Wayback and IPFS copies are public, so please only add feeds for writing you’re happy to keep public.

Give it a try

If you have a feed you care about, I’d be grateful if you’d let Persistwise keep it. Go to persistwise.com, read how it works if you’re curious, and start your free trial. If anything doesn’t work the way you expect, please write to help@ninepointlabs.com. I’d really like to hear from you.

Thanks for reading. Now go write the next one, and let the librarian do the filing.