Building Internet Statues

We build statues to represent important people that we want society to remember. Kings, philosophers, generals—the goal is to preserve their history for future generations. To accomplish this, we build them with long-lasting materials and put them in conspicuous places.

The way I see content is similar. Every time you create something online you’re building an internet statue that will preserve your history.

These statues are much longer-lasting than stone; their material is the binary pulse of silicon and the permanent record of the cloud. They are also infinitely more accessible. A stone monument in a city square can only be seen by those who physically walk past it; your digital statue can be "visited" by someone in Dhaka, Berlin, or San Francisco in the same millisecond.

Why This Matters

If you create something of value today—whether it’s a B2B SaaS venture, Your first YouTube video, A product or a simple tweet there is a significant chance people will be interacting with it a century from now.

We are still in the "founding father" stage of the digital era. The internet is less than 60 years old. This puts us in its absolute infancy. Given the exponential nature of data and the decreasing cost of storage, it is entirely possible that in the year 2148, an aspiring developer or historian will be looking at your work to understand how we built things back in the 2020s.

Digital media doesn't erode like marble. Unless we face a global catastrophe, future generations will likely back up our data ad infinitum. The impact of what you push to production today may be felt for hundreds of years.

The Motivation Decay

This isn't just a high-concept theory; I’m writing this because I’ve felt the weight of the "middle-distance" slump. When you start a new venture, the initial dopamine hit is massive. You get that first surge of views, likes, followers or money, and you feel invincible.

But virality is a spike, not a plateau. When the numbers return to "regular" growth, the human brain interprets that stability as a failure. We feel our determination waver. This writing is my own "immune system defense"—an inoculation against the urge to stop just because the noise died down.

The Logic of ROI

Let's look at the Return on Investment. Every "statue" you build—every video, every project, every business is a digital asset that works for you while you sleep. It brings in income, interest, and reputation for years.

If you calculate your "hourly rate" based on the time spent creating a piece of content versus the cumulative earnings or opportunities it generates over a decade, the number is staggering. It’s not just a standard hourly wage; when you account for the long-tail effects, you are performing $10,000/hour work.

What else offers that kind of leverage? Very little. Continuing to build is the only logical choice.

The Math of Persistence

Popularity follows network effects and power laws. While a single video might net you a specific number of subscribers or leads today, its value compounds over time through "rediscovery."

Even if we assume a conservative decay—where the popularity of a specific "statue" declines by 75% each year—the cumulative effect of consistent building is massive. We can model this using a summation operator:

$\sum_{n=0}^{T} (S \cdot r^n)$

Where:

$S$ is the initial impact (subscribers, leads, or views).
$r$ is the retention rate (e.g., 0.25).
$n$ is the number of years.

Even with steep decay, the "floor" of your influence rises with every new statue you add to your digital park. If you post consistently, you aren't just adding; you're multiplying.

Final Thoughts

We have an inbuilt human bias toward negative thinking. Our brains are evolved to notice the "drop" in views more than the "total" impact. We have to combat this intentionally.

Unless you are absolutely certain that what you are building no longer provides value to the world, you should probably continue. Zoom out. Look at the timeline of a century, not a week. Your ROI is higher than you think, and your statues are more permanent than you realize.

Keep building.