A good option would be to have the same data printed as QR codes in labels glued to small domino sized wood blocks that could be inserted in a slot in a box and read by a cheap camera module.
The article points out there is a useful lesson in accidentally destroying/losing a physical object in the way that floppies or VHS tapes were easy to accidentally destroy and taught young childhood lessons. QR codes are a bit harder to destroy, which can be a benefit, but also loses this tiny lesson.
It is likely they are still being manufactured, too.
Even if the price were to double, I suspect that someone with the skills to make this has a sufficiently well paying job that the price of a hundred disks per year would not be a problem.
As far as I can tell, they are not.
https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/we-spoke-with-the-last-person-s...
Interesting little read I fell into while looking this up!
Yes, it is not efficient, but physical media looks to like it kind of meet some higher levels of needs in the Maslow hierarchy. It is ergonomic, it is human, it is tangible, countable. It is embodied in a world that is less and less embodied by the day.