Let's put it this way: how many punchcards do you own for your computer? How much of your software is written in BASIC? Forty to fifty years, purely on the hardware side, will lead to changes in file formatting. Sure, you could still store MP3s on a 2050s machine, but you can still emulate a C-64 on a Windows 7 box...that doesn't make either a "live" format. In other words, there will be a better file format that takes advantage of the better hardware. And since MP3s aren't physical things like vinyl, there wouldn't really even be a collectors' market, except for people upconverting obscure old files.
You say this after, when sorting old stuff, I found two 8.5 inch floppies (HUGE!) an old Adam computer with a tape drive that I e-bayed, and a portable record player that my sister grabbed for her records. Plus a box of old punch cards, which my mother still can read, though I have no idea how.
I did think of the 'collecting antiques' thing, but you're right, anyone could convert it to a new format and there's no difference. I've made mp3's out of freinds ogg files for a while now as they didn't know how to play them.
Oh, I get that, but I still see the MP3 format sticing around perhaps longer than it should. 50 years? No. 20 more years? 10 more years? Most likely. It'll be phased out when a compression routine comes out that can really cut down on file size without any quality loss, and when the industry picks up on that format. A new format won't mean anything unless the portable players can play it or if the general public won't adopt it(hence, OGG's seeming failure).
FLAC files are still being traded heavily even though they're roughly 5X the file size, all because "quality" obsessed types are a bit picky. Not that portable players handle them but people with big home theater systems want to squeeze that extra few percent out of their speakers.
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I did think of the 'collecting antiques' thing, but you're right, anyone could convert it to a new format and there's no difference. I've made mp3's out of freinds ogg files for a while now as they didn't know how to play them.
From:
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FLAC files are still being traded heavily even though they're roughly 5X the file size, all because "quality" obsessed types are a bit picky. Not that portable players handle them but people with big home theater systems want to squeeze that extra few percent out of their speakers.