> There is no mechanism to archive all of the content we are generating efficiently

While we can't archive all the content, the folk at the Internet Archives* are put heroic efforts in preserving the notable content. If Soundcloud doesn't make it, I hope they at least work with the Internet Archive to preserve the data.

1. https://archive.org/

Also, http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

When programming with immutability becomes ubiquitous, this problem will be solved. Immutable systems enable permanent & idealized caching at all layers. This is more of a research topic now but is where we are headed in 10 year timeframe i think.

Anyway, who cares. What about the last ten thousand years of content that nobody gives a shit about.

This is not a technological problem, it's a money problem.

>This is not a technological problem, it's a money problem.

It doesn't have to be, and in many cases it is not.

On the other hand, without them, much of the content wouldn't have been anywhere anyway. So the content is there because they are there. And if the go away, so might some of that content as well as future content which won't have a home.

Data has never been more permanent than it is now, but we're also generating much more data than ever.

What are you talking about? Stone, paper, and magnetic tape are more permanent than any hard drive or optical storage medium today.

Most things never made it to stone, paper and magnetic tape. We're recording more data now than ever before because it's so cheap to do so. Sure we lose some, but more information will be created and stored today than existed in the entire world not that long ago.