Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
We trust paper because it has been around for a long time, but digital information is easier to store and protect in the long term.
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If the long term is decades, digital is probably ok. We have no idea if this is the case for centuries and millennium. Paper isn't all that great either on these time scales, but we know that some will make it through (at least they have so far). If there is a dark age and computer technology is lost, or perhaps even if an author falls out of favor, can ebooks survive? Note that most digital archives rely on copying to new media every decade or so.