Nine

ICQ is going to shut down in a bit over a month, on June 26. I guess I have stopped using it maybe a year or two after I finished school, so that would be about 2006/2007. Kids born around that time are now full-grown legal adults.

Many graduating classes in German schools follow the tradition of publishing a Abi-Zeitung (literally: A-levels newspaper, a bit like yearbook). I remember that ours contained everyones ICQ numbers. The acronym GDPR didn't carry any meaning at that time, and we were rather oblivious to data protection... Anyway, that is what we thought how we'd stay in contact after being scattered in all directions. Suffice to say, things didn't quite turn out as we imagined. And nearly two decades later, I can help but smile a bit. ICQs iconic "Ah-oh" sound, which signified that a friend wanted to tell you something, will always bring back good memories to me, just as the beautiful screeches of a 56k dial-up modem: a key in the look-up table of my brain. Something that represents a little utopia, an open world, where distances don't matter.

But ICQ was not only a protocol, it was a business as well. Businesses shut down, just as school leavers become middle-aged parents. Such is the nature of all earthly things.

This is also another reminder of the fact that preserving the web is an unsolved problem. But maybe, just maybe, trying to preserve this medium is a fool's errand. Six and half years prior to ICQs upcoming end, the last message that was sent on AIM was posted by Justin Tan, who quoted Leonard Nimoys last tweet: A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP. — I hope the last message on ICQ will be as poetic as that. It would deserve it.