Usage of optical drives is WAY down. At what point does a manufacturer decide that so few people are using a feature there's no point in including it?
My last computer, abandoned about a month ago, included a parallel printer port, PS/2 mouse & keyboard sockets, and a 3.5" floppy drive. These are, or were, major industry standards for which some people still have a use for. But why, oh why, was Dell
still including them, wasting money and space for >99% of customers? Heck yeah remove deprecated features - and let those tiny numbers who still need 'em buy add-ons. Buried in my techno-junk boxes I've got PS/2-USB adapters and a floppy-USB drive; I sure don't want 'em built in any more ... and considering how little I use optical media, I don't want to waste some 15 cubic inches on it.
in fact keeps its edge by dropping features more aggressively than most companies. They keep a pretty tight reign on what is supported, thus making sure what
is supported works well and does not contribute to lethargic obsolescence. Do you need a parallel printer port? PS/2 connectors? RS-232 (25- or 9-pin)? VGA? a dozen other flavors of video output? 3.5" floppies? 5.25"? Zip drives? multiple drive bays from "laptop" 2.5" to "full-height" 5.25"? 3" optical? Firewire? CD/DVD? At what point should a manufacturer, controlling costs & features, decide enough customers don't want something that it should be dropped - even though a small number will be annoyed in the process? And at what point should a manufacturer, wanting to guide the industry to a favorable future, take something away to encourage customers elsewhere?