Discs are just storage mediums, and has no real advantage over SSDs or any other more efficient form of storage. This is really about the perception of ownership, and how owning a disc symbolizes the ownership of the software in it. This is not a hard requirement and any software could be downloaded and offer the same licensing of full ownership, which is what consumers should be really advocating for. We should be able to download games and have the licensing and capability to back them up in any storage medium that we desire. Of course this opens up the problem of piracy, which is why games and software have evolved into online services.<p>If you truly own and control software you can then share it. A possible workaround could be a different approach that would whitelist users based on track record, and only give this user base the freedom to download and backup the software as they wish, trusting them they will not distribute it. Right now online services are open to literally anyone that can create an account, so then they have to implement software that does not trust the user. Perhaps taking the opposite approach, or a combination, where some users are trusted and have privileges might have the greatest impact in solving both piracy and the problem of making every software into an online service.
My understanding is that disc sales represent a tiny fraction of total sales. If so, this might be one of those situations where what people say they want and their behavior are divergent.