don't we inflate this problem away? storage should get more abundant and cheaper and the old media looks comparitevly small compared to higher fidelity and higher definition formats that come later. so it doesn't matter if your gmail stores 20 years of useless emails.

> don't we inflate this problem away?

That continues to be the assumption, yes. Disregarding all the waste being created in the process.

What's fascinating is the fact that the production of TAPE sees a 5x boost. That's the format with the slowest retrieval rate, only making sense for long-term storage, usually 1+ years.

So is there really 5x more valuable data now, or is it just not economic to actually judge the need for preserving data...?