You are probably one of a dying breed.
Actually, quite a few people I know who build computers instead of buying them "off the shelf" do the exact same thing, for the exact same reason.
When you are Dell or HP and shipping computers by the tens of thousands, that adds up. When you are "Joe's Computer Shop" and build them by the dozens, it is an insignificant cost. And to be honest, I have only bought 1 "pre-built" PC in my life, back in 1988. Every computer I have owned in the last 27 years has been one I built myself.
And even when I worked in a store and custom built them for clients, maybe 1 in 10 would choose to save the $1 by installing just a card reader instead of the floppy-card reader.
And yes, I have built many hundreds of computers.
So...you haven't needed a floppy disk for that purpose for almost nine years.
Not that reason, no. But just a few months ago I had to install a floppy into a guy's computer because his RAID card required special drivers that the firmware of the motherboard did not recognize. And I still occasionally get tapped to install one because somebody bought a new computer without a floppy, then realized they had to pull data off of an old floppy disk.
Capacity isn't the only reason. Read/write speed matters, as well.
That goes with capacity. But there were some high-speed floppy drives available towards the end of their usefulness.
The X10 came out in around 1997, but it required a special controller card (with a built-in 80188 CPU) that could cache an entire 1/44MB floppy in less then 5 seconds. But they were significantly more expensive then a standard floppy drive (around $250 for drive and controller, compared to $50 for a standard floppy). This was also the time that the CDRW cost dropped from $20 to $1 per disk, and the ZIP drive was becoming dominant, so the technology was dead at birth.
The cost for the increased speed and lower capacity was just not justified.
The LS-120 was also significantly faster then the standard 1.44 MB drive. But it also was in the $150 range, so never caught on with the public.
Win8 didn't require any storage media to install...I did it all online. I did create an install USB after the fact for "just in case", though. I expect I'll do the same if I get Win10.
You are aware that you are not the standard computer user, are you not?
When talking about how things like software are installed, you have to deal with one of the lowest common denominators. And that is the people that know "turn on, insert disk, install". Talk to 80% of computer users and describe how to make a bootable CD (let alone a bootable USB drive), and you are going to get nothing but a blank stare.
And as for me, I never buy my software "over the internet". I am one of those old-school individuals (as are most others), who wants to be able to hold the media in my hand. Most people only install their OS once, maybe twice. They like the convenience of owning the OS on a disk, so they can install any time they want.
Oh, I really don't think the keyboard and mouse will go away, but I do see people using them less and less. As I said earlier, I use my Android tablet a lot to control my desktop and when Cortana comes out, I'll be using my mic. I also think spacial gestures will make inroads within the next decade or so. All making the keyboard and mouse less necessary than they are now.
I don't. I am also in no way a technophobe, I tend to be on the forward edge of computers. I have an Android phone, as well as a Nexus 7 tablet (which I occasionally use TeamViewer to access my desktop). My main laptop is a Dual Core AMD, and my server is a dual processor Opteron 1U blade server (Windows Server 2008/2012/Mint Maya). My switch is a Cisco Catalyst, and I am one of the few I know that still uses his RS-232 port.
But I am also aware that I am in the top level of computer users, and most do not even want to be bothered with even adding more RAM - let alone making install USBs. Heck, many of our customers every year would bring us their computers so we could install the newest version of Norton. They did not even want to be bothered with something as simple as that.
You are suffering from something I have actually seen far to often in "power users". That is that you do not recognize that you are a "power user", and find it impossible to lower yourself to the capabilities of most "standard users". You and I could probably be able to go all day talking about "GUI Vs. CLI", where 90% of users would be looking at us with glazed-over eyes, completely lost at what we are talking about.
Where as I have worked for decades in both the corporate world, as well as in small mom and pop computer stores, and also self-employed. I have dealt with everybody from the video production company wanting a quad processor system for video editing, to the old lady who simply wants to "turn it on and e-mail the grandkids". And the majority of computer users are more like the second then the first. I still see people constantly who call the Computer the "CPU" or "Hard Drive", and who call the network port the "modem connection". Ask them their OS, and most still tell me "Windows", and have no idea the difference between "RAM" and "Storage".
Me: How much RAM do you have in your computer?
Them: I think 1 Terabyte.
Me: How big is your hard drive?
Them: 8 Gigabyte.
Me: Who made your computer?
Them: Microsoft.
Them: I have heard a lot about 'Linux', can you put that in my computer?
Me: Sure, what do you use your computer for?
Them: Well, mostly games. Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, WoW, things like that.
Me: How comfortable are you in working with a Virtual Machine?
Them: A what?
Me: Do you know what kernel or build of Linux you want to use?
Them: Yes, Linux.
There, that is your
typical computer user. You are so far beyond that, that you seem to have lost contact with the ability of where most users actually are at.
