[SFjulie1]

If you had developed your photos 10 years ago using analogic methods, your negatives are still usable, and your positive (if they were not too exposed to the sun thus conserved normally) would still be there. Whereas if you already had a digital camera, the raw are either lost because the media has decayed, you forgot backup, or worse to index your database. Your positive have all turned yellow unless you spent 10 times more in ink and paper per photo.

In 10 years you probably will have migrated these photo to the cloud and you will both have to pay a recurring costs for life to keep your data (that will die with you), or the photo will die with the service.

In 20 years, you will be more likely to find the old documents made on papers by your ancestors than any of your digital productions to your grand kids. And if you still have them entropy will win. You will not be able to find the relevant piece of data.

Analogic photo is the only long term low cost solution for now.

[icehawk]

My experience has been the exact opposite. Minimal effort in backing up the digital copies makes them easier to access than the film I have from the same period since it's slowly decaying in a box 1,000 miles away.

[SFjulie1]

I also remember an astronomic "observatoire" buying lifetime guaranteed ISO9600 CD as a secondary backup of jpeg encoded pictures in the early 2000's (if you look at it all choices that were legits) that discovered 2 years after the primary backup failed (HD) that the secondary also failed.

Whereas microfilms are still less expensive then and now, and still guaranteed to be more durable with less operational costs.

Those who sacrifice a cheap reliability for the illusion of an expensive ease of use deserve neither one, nor the other.

Benjamin Franklin