> This is all well-and-good, but how do we read all that data in 500 years time, or even 20 years time? I know it won't last due to bit-rot but all my CDs burn

> This is all well-and-good, but how do we read all that data in 500 years time, or even 20 years time? I know it won't last due to bit-rot but all my CDs burned in the nineties are still readable. > Loads of bit-rot combined with complete lack of DVD drives still in common [computer] usage... They are still very common: both in desktop and as USB-connected readers/burners. You can find countless models on Amazon. I don't think they're going away anytime soon. > People were busily archiving data to CDs and DVDs two decades ago, ... That's precisely why they're not going away anytime soon. There are even companies like FB would, at some point, were burning insane amount of data to Blu-Ray discs. > Compare this to books, which can still be read a millennium later. Having a book from 1575 here I do agree (not quite a millenium but still). However the solution to disc bit-rot is simple: once every ten years or so, read your discs and burn them on the new fancy tech of the day (say CDs to DVDs, DVDs to Blu-Ray, now Blu-Ray to these 5D thinggies, rinse and repeat). It's not as if new mediums had less capacity than older ones.