I don't think the meme was ever supposed to mean it's safe to rely on the internet to preserve your data. Instead, it means you should never assume you have the power to delete data once it's out there.
That's what I tell myself as I pirate everything online. Couldn't afford to preserve everything by buying it. The only way to guarantee preservation, personally, is to save it personally.
Even if you could afford to buy everything you care about, much of it is only legally available through DRM which limits or downright removes your capacity to ensure the availability of your copy to you.
Every so often you hear a story about a recording that was presumed lost but has been found on someones VHS collection[1].
Then there are examples like Marion Stokes[2] who recorded 71000 tapes over 30 years.
Fast forward to today (ha ha), and I do think there is some justification for downloading 'pirate content' for archival purposes. In the same way that I think LibGen is a very important project even if it angers some.
To be clear, I believe in buying the items I'm actually going to read or watch to support the creators. Not just pirating everything.
Human life is so far a game of cross-purposes. If we wish a thing to be kept secret, it is sure to transpire: if we wish it to be known, not a syllable is breathed about it. - Hazlitt
