@izaya ...kinda reminds me of when I first found some of my early 1990s Usenet posts on Dejanews.
I mean, it was clear that some people who could afford it kept archives, but there wasn't even a real notion of putting them "online".
In terms of the Fediverse, I'd consider anyone who doesn't honour deletions (or scrapes content for archival) a malicious actor, but both kinds are hard to defend against, even when seemingly restricting distribution.