Why FTP Still Exists and SSH Won't Die

Why does plain FTP from 1985 still technically exist while Gopher was formally retired in 2024? And why has SSH only grown more indispensable instead of being replaced? This episode unpacks the three factors that determine protocol survival: technical adaptability, network effects, and institutional sponsorship. We examine the graveyard (Gopher, Telnet), the exemplar (SSH's modular architecture), and the living fossils (plain FTP). Then we tackle the urgent question: what happens when AI agents, not humans, become the primary consumers of these protocols? A single coding agent opening dozens of SSH connections per minute changes the threat model entirely — and the IETF is already working on ephemeral certificates and post-quantum cryptography for SSH. Episode #832314 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/832314