I think about this all the time. And also with the loss of live TV being the norm, people aren't being randomly exposed to older cultural touchstones unless they specifically seek it out, which makes the current culture feel more isolated.

I'm channeling this need to preserve into data hoarding now. I created a personal media server recently and have been filling it with everything I can find. Today, I found 14 old scifi/monster movies from the 50s/60s on old scratched DVDs to add, which was exciting.