[krick]

It's not that hard to make a mirror or arXiv. Basically, anybody who can pay for hosting (which, I suppose, isn't very cheap now when the whole world uses it). It's a problem to make users switch, because academia seems to have this weird tradition of resisting all practices that, god forbid, might improve global research capabilities and move forward the scientific progress. But then, if arXiv actually becomes unusable, I suppose they won't really have much choice than to switch?

And, FWIW, I do think that arXiv truly has a vast potential to be improved. It is currently in the position to change the whole process of how the research results are shared, yet it is still, as others have said, only a PDF hosting. And since the universities couldn't break out of the whole Elsevier & co. scam despite the internet existing for the 30 years, to me, breaking free from the university affiliation sounds like a good thing.

But, of course, I am talking only about the possibilities being out there. I know nothing about the people in charge of the whole endeavor, and ultimately in depends on them only, if it sails or sinks.