Computers, software and the historic record

The advantage of digital storage is how easy (and cheap) it is to make copies. And the copies are (or can be) loss-less; identical to the original.

Info is much less likely to be lost to history if there are lots of copies, stored in different places. [Much of the historical records we have are because they were ‘official proclamations’ from King/Pharaoh/Emperor X that he ordered sent to every province. Even the Rosetta Stone is one such, with the same text in 3 different languages, which is why it was so useful.]

Even old floppy discs from 35 years ago could be read. Even if you no longer have equipment to read them, someone does. Just a matter of being willing to pay them to do it. There is a small business nearby that transfers info from old media, like 8", 5.25", & 3.5" floppies, CDs, photos, slides, super-8 films, VHS/Beta tapes, etc. onto current media. They seem to make a living doing it, busy with wait lists.

And if you are concerned about ‘the cloud’, backup. I have a friend with an extensive collection of photos, now all digital. He stores them on Google, Microsoft, and some other online archives, paying for extra storage on each one. Seems unlikely that all of them would go under at the same time. (I’ve told him the bigger risk is that when he dies, nobody in his family will be interested enough to bother saving this. He should inspire a young relative with the same archivalist instinct.)