I've been in IT since '75 and have seen a lot. This is the first time that I've ever read or heard of "zapped by "on line" erase commands" from the big boys" . doesn't mean it can't happen , but ...
Being in the field so long, I have a huge distrust for most anything digital or mechanical.
Streaming ? a joke to me. Heck, most of the cell phone call I get , suck badly. my PC isn't even wireless and streaming video news (the latest and greatest for local TV stations) suck too. Maybe in the future when all copper is pulled , streaming will work like promised , but not today.
Digital ? Almost everything digital is stored on hard drives. Turn one upside down and among the electrical ratings you will find a
"MTBF" number. Well what is that ???
Mean
Time
Between
Failures. ie: the expected life of the drive or when it may fail. Not
IF it will fail, but when its expected to. Crazy how many iPod hard drives croak and entire digital collections are lost. IT mantra = backup, backup, backup ...
Sure, LP's wear out. Tape degrades, CD's may too. But streaming? I'll save the bandwidth for you to use. (oh heck, I do stream Pandora sometimes. It sucks too.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures