Books deserve a github repo with PDF web archives of referenced links, the same way that Wikipedia mirrors the content of cited links.
Storage cost has fallen exponentially for decades, https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-price-of-comput...
... and it would serve as a form of redundancy, imitating the fungible nature of physical media: In order to cite the latest, copied, manuscript (for example) you needed to own a physical copy. They existence of these has enabled survival of works that would otherwise have been lost, or even reconstruction through ecdotics.-
> And we essentially only have one single entity that tries to retain that information.
Will future ages find ours a dark age, a gap in their records, a void ...
... up until the point - if ever - where a sufficiently advanced solution for permanence is found and comes online?
Like the laser printer?
The cost of permanent, physical preservation is pennies. People just don't do it for most things. And it doesn't guarantee accessibility, which has hosting costs.
Sure. Whatever works.-
But I meant one that is systematically and systemically and widely used.-
I think this is a very likely future, yes.
What we're doing right now is borderline insane. We're putting all of this information on the web, but almost each individual bit of information is dependent on either a company or a human being keeping it online. It's inevitable that companies change their minds, and humans die, so almost all of the information that is online right now will just disappear in the next 80 years.
And we essentially only have one single entity that tries to retain that information.