Yeah disc rot is a real problem. CD/DVD-R are great when it comes to physically store drives (they don't take much space on a shelf and are easely sent via mail) but I'd rather use a hard drive and the cloud for my backups now.

The problem goes away if you burn slow, no faster than half the disc's max speed, to adequately affect the dye. I have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs that are 20 years old and work great. Inherent rot is mainly a problem with pressed discs which use aluminum instead of silver or gold for the reflective layer.

I burn my CD-Rs at a very low speed, like someone else mentioned below, so the laser does a better burn. I don't use CD-Rs as primary backup. I have 10 external hard drives, 20 thumb drives, and do a CD-R only once every couple of weeks. I just feel better having multiple different hardware devices used.