Are optical drives obsolete?

Are Optical Drives Obsolete?

by Skiman1984

            A long time ago (20ish years) if you wanted to install a program on your computer you had to pull out a floppy disk, and stick it in your PC. Now a days you never see floppy disk readers except for maybe at a flea market or your grandma's house. What happened where did all the floppy disks go?

            They went to the dump after the invention of CD's. CD's were slightly larger then floppy disks but could hold much more data. If a program had required 10 floppy disks in the past all that information could fit on to a CD and still have room left over. CD's also changed many of our lives outside of the PC world. Now I could watch movies on a DVD player which had better picture quality then VCR's (if you don't know what a VCR then you're too young to be reading this).

            You could also make a mix CD for that girl you had a crush on. You thought every time she plays "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal in her Discman she would think about you. Well it did not work but Discmen were huge (think hamburger in your pocket). Seriously, though they changed how people exchanged music. Instead of having all those tapes around you could use a CD which could hold more songs and you did not need to change sides. No more side A side B.

            Then came the MP3 players which took a while to catch on until the IPOD came out. Now you could put all your CD's onto a device that could fit into the palm of your hand. Soon after the IPOD came the ITunes store. In one quick stroke Apple had killed the music CD. No longer did you have to walk/drive to Tower Records, HMV, Strawberries... etc. With ITunes you could now buy that new Pearl Jam album without leaving your house.

            Well CD's still had a place in our lives you still had to buy games via CD. Software came with a CD. You still needed a CD to install programs and watch movies on your computer or DVD player. That all changed with the "on-demand" generation.

            There were a few companies that saw what ITunes did. They saw that people would rather use the power of the internet to get access to media then go to a physical store. People wanted their movies, software, NOW and not later. Enter NetFlix, Hulu, Direct2Drive, Steam... etc. Now you could get movies just with a click of a button no more DVD's. Also you could now download games via Steam and Direct2Drive and other such companies.

            These companies changed the landscape no more going to a video store to "rent" a video you could now "rent" with a click of a button. Game stores such as GameStop saw PC box sales drop because people could now just buy "digital copies" of the games.

            Microsoft and other companies now offered you "digital" versions of their OS. Nowadays if you want software you type what you want into Google and download the software from the company's website. This now leads into my original question are optical drives obsolete?

               I say yes! You have no need for CD's anymore. Certainly a CD burner is just as silly nowadays. Why am I going to burn a CD? You can get all your software online now with a click of a button. There is one reason to have a CD. When you buy a brand new PC most companies give you the disks for "backup" reasons. If you get a virus and the virus won't let you get on-line or access windows how could you do a clean install? Without the disk you would SOL,  you need a disk or do you?

With the new xbox there talking about killin off the optical..