It's not as if we are going to wake up one morning and every single psd or raw file in the world suddenly can't be read. Nor as if all of a sudden Photoshop won't run. If there is going to be a format or media problem it will start to appear a long way in advance, and we will all have plenty of time to convert our stored images to whatever is taking over.
I guess you worry also about all that data of yours stored in proprietary formats in databases across the world..
Yes and no. A friend of mine who works in autocad told me about one upgrade where yes, you could open old files, but how on some file, the new version made tiny little changes. For example, a thin dotted line might be a very thin but solid line. Maybe doesn't sound like much, but if you use autocad to design aircraft engines or nuclear reactors...
The other thing too - and I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone here - but for "old farts" like myself who have been into computers since the days of 300 baud modems where you plugged the black handset into a foam lined base, I've heard these things said over and over and over, and I now tend to believe them just as much as I believe a promise from a politician (any political party
).
Don't get me wrong, I use digital and digital techniques every day of my life, but from an archivist point of view, not just our electronic media, but issues with our hard copy media, many of us wonder just how much of our history will survive say even a hundred years from now.
Back to prints, I love visiting both public and private galleries, photography, sculpture, art of any form. I do find, as an overall trend, but not always, that the phrases used to describe photographic prints is becoming more grandiose and obtuse. Not just digital either - last "traditional" B&W print that came from a wet darkroom I saw in a gallery had some long rambling phrase I forget now about "silver rich" - blah, blah, blah. Nobody is innocent here.
Last thought - whether you can make a platinum print by hand or on a printer is missing the point. One thing about ALL art forms - not just photography - be it wood carving, oil painting, photography, whatever, the process of how you make your print or your art affect the final outcome just as much as the media you use. For example, I remember a wood carver telling me how he used to do soapstone, but he liked wood better because of the smell of the wood he was carving and he thought it affect how he "saw" his final product before he finished. By the same token, I dislike the smell of fixer, but the very smell of that chemistry, and the dark silence of my wet darkroom puts me in a very different mindset than when I am sitting in front of my monitor editing a photograph in photoshop. One is not better or worse than another, but you must pay attention to how your media and surroundings affect your mood and the final image in your mind's eye. IMO, that is the most important difference, and for each person, you will have to try and experiment until you find the medium that "clicks" for you. Even then, you may find that keeping a hand in other mediums helps keep your edge alive.
good luck
joe