Originally Posted by
njx9
I'm honestly curious, since I hear this a lot (that users don't care about/need a cd/dvd drive)... Do you plan to just throw out any current CD/DVD media you own then? Or to re-buy it digitally?
I guess the floppy to CD stuff never affected me, since I was technical enough to get my data off the floppies, young enough that I didn't have much in the way of media on floppy, and because I can still plug a floppy into my computer anytime I want, if I really need to use it. Seems like, especially with DRM, that's a much different proposition now.
I guess I get not caring about the use of it for the future, but I hate seeing currently usable hardware disappear today because people won't use DVDs in a decade (and yes, I understand you can get an external drive).
For music, I have everything ripped since CDs have been worse than files for five years. For movies and console games, I still have stuff in the living room that can play them, but I'm probably not buying more, and ripping is too much work for a movie.
I haven't bought computer games on optical media since
Steam came out in 2003. On-line software distribution doesn't have the awful DRM that disc-based does, especially since the distributors I use are very consumer-friendly (Steam allows thirty days of offline use, iOS and Mac App Stores allow indefinite offline use).
I removed the DVD drive from my MacBook over a year ago, and I haven't missed it. Apple isn't removing it because "people won't use DVDs in a decade," they're removing it because they don't think people who don't use DVDs today need to subsidize and carry extra weight around for people who do.