[SketchySeaBeast]

> Most of them will probably be lost from disk drive failures, accidental erasure, hardware failures making them too expensive to recover, software obsolescence (pictures are on the device but they don't make the software to connect to the device any more)...

> Meanwhile I have a box of family pictures, some of them from the 19th century (a few tin types), but most of them from the 20th century, that are still good most with negatives intact. I could print a brand new print of any of them anytime I want.

This is really where cloud storage solves those problems. The photos I care about are shared with friends and family and are safe from hardware failure or house fire. The only scenario they aren't great at is the inter-generational one, but if dad gives kids access it's no worse than a shoebox under the bed. They'll just have to pull stuff down into their own digital lockers before MasterCard and Google realize I'm dead.