The problem is if someone somewhere doesn't look after physical things that we can't replace... who will? Individuals can delegate it to others, but someone has to do it (if we want to keep historical things at all.)
That's a great point. For example, I recently got back into film photography and I found that if you want to get a 40-year-old camera today, you'll probably be buying it from a collector. Without them, these wonderful, obsolete tools would have gone in the landfill long ago.
There are definitely cameras that fall into the collectible category. But I would have thought that 1980-era DSLRs were still pretty available from used camera stores. (I haven't personally checked; maybe run-of-the-mill film cameras son't move quickly enough.)
Duh. Not DSLRs of course. It's too ingrained at this point.
Good point! And there are many fantastic film cameras from long ago. I just bought a Nikon F2 film camera (my second) yesterday. Many of those old film cameras and such a joy to shoot with.
Different US States do provide this function...
One of the best (and the first 1901) is Alabama https://archives.alabama.gov/