To me, my online presence within certain communities is as much me as I am me with my friends and family in person and I care deeply about them. It's disturbing and worrying when someone that you talk to regularly suddenly stops coming online, and I generally spend most of my online time with people I care about.
Accounts like my shitposting twitter account and HN accounts - who cares. But I don't want to be another lost soul last seen online years ago after suddenly disappearing. I have too many people like that who I still think about.
I'm not trying to diminish the importance of our online lives while we live. It is a big part of our lives. But after we are gone... different story.