You look around and many of the original internet archive sites that fostered the reason to use the net have gone to the wayside as new offerings of data sources and information have taken their place.

For decades sites like BigPond have been serving Open Source  software along with Shareware and information projects to internet users. Many smaller projects found a home on their site with free and fast distribution of updates often meaning large files were downloadable to users in distant areas which never could have been accessed due to timeouts and transfer costs.

When a new version of Linux was released files could be downloaded to to the mirror site and for Australia users many who did not have IDSN for long after much of the US had DSL and Cable Modems it meant their monthly quota was not effected.

I personally remember downloading slackware and redhat over a 28k dialup modem and that was no fun but it was better then my 14.4k.

When archive sites like BigPond or DEC started to crop up they were a very valuable resource. This was prior to commercial options such as cdrom.com or simtel.net and long before download.com.

Without the original archive sites technology would not have grown as quickly. Many companies like Sun would have fallen much faster and the browser wars may never have even happened.

At that time transfer fees for creating your own website file archive for your project would have prohibited many projects from distributing their software.

We all should take time to thank these industry leaders that allowed us to distribute our ideas for free. Having been one of them I say my thanks and wish them all the best.