I totally agree with you about Lomax, a whole world of information is available to us all now and it's fantastic. My concern is that there's no thought for the long term. As music gets passed from mp3 to mp3, from youtube to soundcloud, it can only degrade in quality. It's important to preserve the originals rather than rely on third party services which will be gone in twenty years.
I agree. Although, I think we're at a point where most people (or at least the people who care) are savvy enough to know the importance of saving original files/formats. When people are really passionate about something, be it music, books, aquariums, what have you, they take the time to learn how to do things right.
Maybe yeah. What worries me a bit is that, apart from on the internet, I don't see many people who know the difference between lossy and lossless formats (for example). That, and the implication they have going forwards. That said, it's a WHOLE load more people that what we had in Lomax's time, so that's something. Plus, the technology and information to do it 'properly' is cheaply and readily available. In fact, there are whole groups of people devoted to preserving out digital history.