Not long. VCRs are helical scan machines; the 3/4" tape you see actually has a bunch of parallel tracks on it with very little buffer. VCRs remain the most mechanically precise instruments ever adapted for home use. "Tracking" adjusts the placement of the read head by the micron. That's pretty tricky in and of itself, especially considering there hasn't been a high-precision VCR made in over 15 years (I had this one). And stacking up those tracks makes them bleed. Set aside the fact that magnetic tape delaminates like a mutherfucker; helical scan means your fields are touching. The smeary look that the hipster kids are calling "nostalgia" is actually just a crisp recording getting old. Recordings made for VCRs will never again look as good as they do now, and they already look loads worse than they did ten years ago.
Wow, only 10 years. DVD's look like 100-200 years if you keep them in cool, dry, dark storage. So our grandkids will be able to trade DVDs like today's hipsters trade cassette tapes.Among the manufacturers that have done testing, there is consensus that, under recommended storage conditions, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVDR discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more; CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVDRW, and DVD-RAM discs should have a life expectancy of 25 years or more. Little information is available for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs (including audio and video), resulting in an increased level of uncertainty for their life expectancy. Expectations vary from 20 to 100 years for these discs.
I already have friends who are buying VHS tapes. Long live obsolete.
I would argue they aren't already. Here's the thing: those VHS tapes mean a lot to her. They'll mean fuckall to her kids because she's not watching them with them. Physical media for intellectual property is nostalgia at this point, and that shit you're nostalgic for your kids will recognize as baggage. Those tapes already aren't as crisp as they were when she bought them, and by the time her kids have stuff "passed along" to them ever capacitor in the deck will have leaked. Besides which everything will be available at 4k with two or three versions of commentary, BTS, storyboards and god knows what else and your friend's handle on those stories won't color her kids' handle on those stories in the slightest.