Libaries have screwed this up as well numerous times. less so for proper archives. However lets take a wide example micro-film. Many libraries started storing p

Libaries have screwed this up as well numerous times. less so for proper archives. However lets take a wide example micro-film. Many libraries started storing periodicals on microfilm. Thing is for a lot of older local news papers and such thats now all that exists. (no known original left) It also takes money to put those micro-film scans on something that is not obsolete. You still run into libraries keeping a microfilm reader on hand since they don't have the funds to convert everything. While microfilm was seen to have advantages durning its peak as its become more obsolete it become obvious it has draw backs compared to keeping original documents. At least its relatively simple in practice just needing about 100x microscope to read. The problem with digital information is worse especially you if throw in proprietary disk formats and proprietary file formats in the mix. Let alone keeping hardware operating that can use older interfaces for the storage medium, the alternative is keep copying the data to newer media and ensure that no errors happened during that process I guess my point is that keeping a archived/preserved piece of data accessible always has an upkeep cost. Even books and other physical things have an upkeep cost mainly keeping a safe environment to store said items to keep them safe things like uv that may fade items or humidity that make them mold ect... Let alone protecting items from cataclysmic events fire ect.. Any break down along this line for a library or archive means information may be lost or no longer accessible. The problem is the same for companies except now they have to weigh spending money on this for documentation and such for products they no longer sell and likely do not even support any more if old enough.