[al_borland]

Maybe not, but this likely wasn’t a decision they made, but one made for them by PC, console, and car makers.

I will say, I still have a CD player in my car (2023 model year), an external optical drive for my computer), and will be getting an optical drive for my PS5 Pro. I was upset the “Pro” version didn’t come with one, that was foreshadowing by Sony.

[conductr]

Counterpoint. I remember when disc drives were requirement and shopping for a PC meant geeking out on disc drive read/write specs. I was then thankful when it disappeared and never missed it. I once thought about getting one as a peripheral device and it was $30 on Amazon, easily attainable. Yet, I guess that need wasn’t sufficient because I still never bought it. I know I could have one delivered to my doorstep tomorrow if I ever needed one though.

[al_borland]

> I know I could have one delivered to my doorstep tomorrow if I ever needed one though.

One of the reasons I decided to get one a couple years ago was to do it while there were still decent options. I ended up with an LG. I imagine that at some point we’ll only see cat-on-keyboard brand players being resold from AliExpress.

[conductr]

I find with these decisions, it’s still hard to future proof. The USB standards and ports will evolve and that may be more of a problem. Probably plenty of ways to solve in the near future but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was more of a problem in longer term timeframe.