In reply to Chris Rusbridge.

It seems part of the fundamental problem is that we're trying to fund
something in perpetuity with a single charge business model. An ongoing
subscription model at least has the advantage that it in principle provides
funding into the future. But both that and institutional archiving presume
that the institution (or company) survives.

Maybe we do just need to be realistic about time frames and attempt to set
out costs based on e.g. 80% survival over 50 years. Not a popular view I
imagine with the digital preservation community but does it have any value
as a straw man at least against which to compare other approaches?

The other thing that we desperately need to get a better handle on is a more
flexible model of costs. The RIN study and model is a good start but until
we start really focussing on where costs can be reduced on the production
and distribution side (which really ought be much lower than they used to
be) then we can't think about shifting those costs over into digital
preservation strategies. We will be doing "more with less" so we need to
figure out where that less is going to come from, or at least whether its
realistic.