OS X Lion preview ably demonstrates that disc is dead

Disc is dead... unless you want to watch a blu-ray movie, run a program that is only found on a disc, or cannot connect to the internet... but how often do any of those circumstances ever happen?

I don't think removable media is dead. Portable hard drives, USB sticks and so forth remain. Cloud-based is not for everyone considering some people still have a slow internet connection, and disks should be phased out for cloud purchasing and downloading for software, but heavy software should be purchasable off the shelf as USB installs, its is possible and has been since the Windows 2000 days. But disks should not be taken away from gaming consoles, movies.

With no Leopard support for the Mac App Store, how do they expect Leopard users to upgrade to Lion if they don't offer a disc? Purchase Snow Leopard just to get the App Store and download Lion for more outlay?

They'd lose a lot of potential upgrades if they killed the disc.

Disks are still relied upon by the majority of users and it takes about five years to turn this over if the euthanasia of the floppy disk is an indicator. Older people don't like change and companies that don't buy into that model or don't implement it well will cause trouble for people that adopt early. For example, would you ever go disk free with an OS or Office license purchase from Microsoft? It is highly inadvisable.

Blogs keep pushing the idea. I sure hope Apple never actually goes there. I could never consider a computer a "Pro" if it lacked a a removable media storage device. Sure, most pros whose products are Office files or websites may be able to use the cloud and USB sticks. But publishing pros every day need to ship and/or archive project files that can be easily be hundreds of Gigabytes.

Following your logic, every combo update Apple has provided for OSs through the years is a sign the disc is dead. I don't see how you can say that with Logic and Final Cut (even Garage Band) weighing in at enormous dimensions. In these days of providers charging for data (as ATT and Verizon do for tethered devices), I don't see a future without distribution of tangible media. Going forward, not everybody will be willing to download mega-apps while paying for the bandwidth.

Totally dismissive attitude towards countries that don't have a reliable internet service. I have worked in places where you're lucky to get dial-up still. Tell me how long (and more to the point how costly) it would be to download software of a significant size there. The word that springs to mind is 'insular'...A criticism oft levelled at the land of the free.

Ripit > HandBrake > MetaX :( RIP This is why I get DVDs from Netflix, what will I do now, oh well my Drobo with 8TB is almost full anyway.

Seems to me like they're using the App Store to distribute because it tags the download with an Apple ID, which might let them track down leaks a little easier. Not that it won't leak -- but it might make it just that little bit harder/more dangerous to do so...

Apple already sells three computer models that have no optical drive (11" and 13" MBA and the Mac Mini Server). I would think that they could distribute Lion on a USB drive. Think about it. This Apple support article http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1948 and this TUAW article from 2006 http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/08/intel-macs-can-boot-from-usb-drives/ both say that Intel-based Macs can boot from external USB drives. Support for non-Intel-based Macs was dropped in Snow Leopard, so that iMac G5 in the back office wouldn't benefit from Lion anyway.

They would be able to pack more Lion USB sticks into the same volume as a given number of Snow Leopard install DVD boxes. The USB stick would, of course, contain all necessary documentation, and extra software with along with the OS.