And today you can buy a 20tb drive for under a grand.

For more info:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285418 - "Nine PBS sues Iron Mountain over blocked access to archival data" - 229 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333344 - "Judge sets framework for Nine PBS to retrieve archival data" - 75 comments

They lost data because of their incompetence and not actually having any backups.

False: they did not lose the data; they temporarily lost access to it, because of Iron Mountain's security policies. They are, necessarily, pursuing remedies in court. They can and will regain access.