Re: Heat Death of the Internet

On Fri, 3 May 2024, Marco Moock wrote:

Am 03.05.2024 schrieb not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev):
>

Scratched discs would be your enemy here. Old DVDs find their way
to second hand stores which sell them for very little money, but
usually a good percentage of them are scratched to unwatchability.
Renting DVDs always had more risk than renting VHS tapes due to
scratched discs, even though they usually had disc polishing
machines which they might use to some effect after you went back
to the store and complained. I don't think video DVDs and audio
CDs were fit for the purpose of replacing tape in the first place,
and the rapid adoption of streaming and P2P downloads is the cost
that the old media industry paid for that. Much to the benefit of
ISPs and the new internet media companies like Amazon and Google.

>
CDs and DVDs also become unreadable after some years, especially when
light reaches them.

I think the oldest CD I ever tried to read, successfully, was about 15 years or so. I do wonder though, if my old pirated CD/DVD collection that sits in a box somewhere would still be readable today after an additional couple of decades on top of that?