> Just about everybody knows how to put photo files on a computer, too. The issue was how to protect against loss.

Actually, they don't. My grandparents don't even own a computer, and my parents struggle to maintain digital collections of photographs (I can't count how many photo collections we've lost over the years due to failed hard drives, broken CDs, &c.)

I think the point about fire-proof safes is an excellent one, but we're also talking about different loss models: losing your possessions to a housefire is relatively uncommon while slowly losing your digital records to hardware failure, obsolete mediums, &c. is extremely common. Put another way: I suspect the number of people who have lose their wedding photos to hard drive failure far outsizes the number who lose the same photos to housefires.