I couldn't see the link on the Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) menu for its long-running World Archive Project, but a little digging has revealed why - Ancestry discontinued it in February of this year.
Launched in 2009, the World Archive Project brought volunteers from around the world to help index collections, with those indexes made available for free to the public, although a subscription was still requried to see the actual records involved. In total, some 407 databases were added to the site as a part of the project - you can see a list of all those involved at https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/world_archives/.
According to Ancestry, in almost classic corporate Borg speak, the reasons for this were given as follows:
Ancestry is committed to preserving and amplifying at-risk history and powering new discoveries for all through new and exciting technology. To amplify our impact in the community, we have reallocated our resources to focus on these new technologies and have made the difficult decision to discontinue the World Archives Project.
My guess is that AI is being employed more, but would appreciate if anyone can provide a further steer on why this has happened.
I don't see a thank you from Ancestry in its announcement in February to the more than 150,000 volunteers who participated in the project, but for what it is worth, I'd like to convey my own thanks to you all, your contribution was certainly appreciated.
(Source: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Discontinuing-the-Ancestry-World-Archives-Project)
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Oh dear
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