Books are not just decadent, they're also a reliable store of information which cannot be erased or altered easily without our knowledge.
There's immense and irreplaceable value in paper books, and I've taken to collecting the best ones.
I just don't think there's much value in this particular one.
I love paper books as well, but I think the authors have prophetically captured the inevitable. Cutting down forests to only add tangibility to our bytes just isn't worth it.
I agree that it's inevitable that things move that way - my only paper books in recent years have been to complete my collection of Ian Banks because that particular edition looks gorgeous, and Stålenhag's art books. I don't anticipate buying more paper copies of novels or textbooks unless there are books I can't find in digital version.
But at the same time, I just published a scifi novel and was surprised at how large a proportion of sales are still made up by paperback (not exactly selling millions, so it's not exactly a large sample of the market). It seems like it will take a long time before paper books become unusual to the point of being considered decadent.
Many, many books are being discarded these days, so I don't have to buy new, or buy at all.
My old hometown's system used to do a semi-regular culling at the yearly mini arts & crafts fest in the park. They'd lay out 5 long rows of tables and cover them in old books that had to be retired. You could take as much as you could carry for a donation of any size.
I used to go when I was in my teens and had two dollars to rub together, and I still go back now in my 30's if I'm in town (with more of a donation). I've found some real gems.
What digital storage do you have that will last that long? A few CDs would in the ideal case (but most are not that grade). I'm not clear how long SSDs will last. Magnetic tape becomes brittle and single read in about 30 years as we know from history.
The only advantage of digital is IF you care at all it is easy/cheap to copy to something new.
If you actually want books to last a long time, they must be stored under controlled conditions by an actual archivist.
Hardbacks are more likely to last, and premium heirloom hardbacks = special print runs with special materials and extra assembly effort - are most likely to survive.
But for what? Most heirloom hardbacks are better-than-average novels for well-heeled fans and collectors, not a complete guide to rebuilding civilisation.
I'd be all for an apocalypse-beating Self-Study Handbook of The Important Stuff We Worked Out and Did, but good luck finding a publisher to fund what would be a massive project.
Other than binding, which can be re-done pretty easily, paperbacks are readable after 50-100 years.
The paper may yellow, but crumbling takes a bit longer.
Although I have PDFs of all of them, so it doesn't matter. The fact that I can change the font size to make them legible now does, to me at least.
The hardbacks are still fine. (Except for the print size.)
[0] "The Knowledge" by Lewis Dartnell
And I have several books published in the nineteen thirties and forties that would serve well to reboot civilization having comprehensive instructions for building all sorts of necessary machinery, buildings, clothes, etc. There were many such books with titles such as "Everything Within" and "The Handyman's Complete Self-Instructor".
There is no need for a publisher to fund a massive project; most of what is needed is already available on paper and increasing amounts of it have been scanned so that anyone with a laser printer can make their own permanent copy.
Of course those 1930s and 40s books won't tell you how to build a modern computer but they do tell you how to build a radio without needing to build a chip fab first.
And it seems that there is sufficient interest (presumably as conversation pieces) for some such books to be republished: https://bookshop.org/books/the-handyman-s-complete-self-inst...
1) Endless knowledge
2) It's a bloody fortress
Kidding aside, though, and also being one that maintains a small library I have to agree. Most of them are not so cheap as to actively degrade so fundamentally as to be unreadable. Maybe old dime-store dramas. I mean, unless you've left them open in the sunlight for 50 years.
They're not a guide for rebuilding civilization. They're something that can last through whatever dark time you're considering in some semi-forgotten corner, so the next civilization can learn about and study what came before. And honestly, they don't need to last the whole time, but rather only until thins recover enough that you start to have copyists, etc.