I am concerned about this with my family photos. I had been striving to take only film photos but was lured into the digital age by my MIL who gave me her digital camera (she didn't like futzing with it).

We have bins of photos and several albums pre-Miles. Poor Miles thinks photos of him just exist on the computer. It is my plan to print out tons of photos in the coming months and get updated.

I see another interesting side effect that is little commented on. When people took film photos they were stuck with whatever photos they got developed. There were always candid shots/less than perfect that today get edited out. I actually prefer candid photos with imperfections. There is a real beauty in blur/focus/double exposure/cut offs that are completely lost due to digital edit.

I read something once about the longevity of various things. I think old black and white photos were considered best. Colour photos not quite so good. Digital was bad exactly because of what you said, the accessibility problem.

Old color photos are really bad and tended to fade. I've got some from my childhood that are, regrettably barely legible. The other thing about digital photos is how often does one really look at them? I've been using a digital camera exclusively for about 5 years now, but for photos I want to keep forever, I upload them to a place like Kodak Gallery of Shutterfly & then have them print them out for me & I've got them stored in acid free albums. I'm always getting promotions for these sites & can get prints made usually for about 11-cents each which, even with the postage is cheaper & much less a hassle than printing them out myself.

My sister has videos of her son growing up but now vhs is not being used so she will have to put them on disk but now they have blue ray so the dvd is going too.

I noticed an squib in a magazine for a digital camera that can immediately print out colored photos. A fascinating process using heat to activate the colors. However, tiny, tiny print advises that the pic will only last about 3 years. I wonder how many folks are going to buy one of those, say for Jr's first day at school... and don't realize it will be gone long before he graduates.

The older color photos are interesting. I have some from 30 years ago that look as fresh as when taken; and some from 20 years ago that are more yellowed than a century-old snapshot.

You need to do both:

Digital photo paper for home printing is not as good as prints made by the processing labs: it will deteriorate and fade over the years (I learned this from a tech. magazine). Digital formats such as jpeg etc will eventually be outdated: but, just as you can get your old Super 8 cine films converted to VHS, and then again from VHS to DVD, there will ALWAYS be conversion technology.

To be really certain of protecting yoru family photos, you need to do both: print copies, and digitally saved copies. If you want the print copies to last, ideally, you shoudl order them from an online service, as the paper quality is better.
For saving your photos digitally, please, please BACK THEM UP in a second place than your computer. I had a catastrophic hard-drive failure a few years back and lost all my photos. Back them up on CDs, and an external hard-drive.
I keep my external hard-drive in a fire-proof box. I have friends who's house burned down and they lost everything. A fire proof box might have saved their stuff. On-line photo storage would also have saved their stuff.

BACK UP. I can't say it enough.

We just got one of thoe photo frames where you can store literally hundreds and hundreds of photos. It's very nice -- I have it on a bookcase -- looks like a photo frame and the photos just scroll through.