When I quit producing a radio program that I once did for Washington State University, I carefully copied all the programs onto a reel of audio tape. I figure when I retire it will be fun to listen to them. The topic was the science behind our food supply. All of our modern, digital and analog technologies are ephemeral. Here today, gone tomorrow, or the next day.
Paper is the answer.
Of course we can't hear voices or see moving pictures on paper, but foolish indeed is the genealogist or family historian who trusts his or her life's work to computer technologies. There is absolutely nothing like them for creating our genealogies and histories. But like the wise man who built his house upon stone, the wise genealogist preserves his genealogy on paper. Kept from flood and fire, most paper will still be around in a couple hundred years. No one, not even Bill Gates, knows whether technologies will exist in 200 years to read the documents we are creating today.