&gt; The problem is that fire and water will still destroy it.<p>Same for digital.<p>&gt; With digital, you can easily just have thousands of copies spread around various data centers and never have to worry about that.<p>Same with print. Just replace &quot;data centers&quot; with &quot;libraries&quot;.<p>&gt; The low cost to copy and the ease of transfer are pretty big advantages here.<p>It&#x27;s only low cost and easy if you assume the whole computing infrastructure is already available: electrical and networking grid(s), working equipment, compatible software, trained operators, etc. All of that is expensive and, for archival purposes, fragile.<p>&gt; And you get things like easy searching, perfect copies, etc as well.<p>No arguments there, but these advantages have little to do with long-term preservation.<p>The best archival strategy is going to involve multiple types of media. Keep things available on the network for ease of access. Put important things on paper&#x2F;parchment just in case. Mix in tape&#x2F;film and other media as needed.