It's like a really sad version of train spotting
But to be more serious, I understand his point - it makes sense to make backup's of a memory that has a finite life, who might only need a backup once in your life, but having one could be hugely valuable.
On a similar issue, I used to have EEPROM backups for various televisions - EEPROM corruption was a common issue, and having a backup meant you could either reprogram the original one, or program a new blank one.