> The huge difference is that digital data doesn't ever "wear out"
it depends.
once a broken copy is out for whatever reason, you have a broken copy.
also most of the formats used today to archive digital media are lossy (mpeg4, h264, jpeg etc)
> but it generally costs a lot less than storing physical books
if we discount the electric bill.
> Both of these problem are relatively easy to solve
not really.
I used to own a huge collection of DVDs
they're as digital data as it gets, but no one owns a DVD player nowadays and many of them degraded to the point that even an high quality reader cannot read them properly.
problem is you don't get a blurry image like with analog media, you just get broken and/or unreadable data, so basically that data is lost forever.
> also most of the formats used today to archive digital media are lossy (mpeg4, h264, jpeg etc)
"Lossy" doesn't mean it wears out. If you are a digital media librarian, you will use MPEG and put it in a container with error-correction codes and store multiple copies.
"Lossy" refers to the encoding between the full data you got from your scanner/digital encoder and the final file. It doesn't mean that meaningful information is lost from the original analog artifact and it doesn't mean it's not great for long-term preservation.
it depends.
once a broken copy is out for whatever reason, you have a broken copy.
also most of the formats used today to archive digital media are lossy (mpeg4, h264, jpeg etc)
> but it generally costs a lot less than storing physical books
if we discount the electric bill.
> Both of these problem are relatively easy to solve
not really.
I used to own a huge collection of DVDs
they're as digital data as it gets, but no one owns a DVD player nowadays and many of them degraded to the point that even an high quality reader cannot read them properly.
problem is you don't get a blurry image like with analog media, you just get broken and/or unreadable data, so basically that data is lost forever.