You're probably right that in the past, things would just be filed away, but then, even if it's a pain to find, there's hopefully an obvious place to find it. Old newspapers got onto microfilm and then into libraries, or were otherwise preserved to some degree by their publishers.
Good luck finding someone's archive of a Youtube channel. Sure it probably exists, probably even several copies of it, but unless XxX_PussyDestroyer69_XxX on reddit wrote in a comment that they personally archived that particular channel, you're never going to be able to get in touch with the relevant people to actually get a hold of what you're looking for.
I wish peer-to-peer video ended up being more popular than it is, if only to have an obvious place to put those archives people otherwise juat hoard foe themselves, but I have little faith that will happen for as long as Youtube remains the only viable video platform out there for your average Joe.
Good luck finding someone's archive of a Youtube channel. Sure it probably exists, probably even several copies of it, but unless XxX_PussyDestroyer69_XxX on reddit wrote in a comment that they personally archived that particular channel, you're never going to be able to get in touch with the relevant people to actually get a hold of what you're looking for.
I wish peer-to-peer video ended up being more popular than it is, if only to have an obvious place to put those archives people otherwise juat hoard foe themselves, but I have little faith that will happen for as long as Youtube remains the only viable video platform out there for your average Joe.