I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.

How to create a bootable USB to install OS X Mavericks Your email has been sent Jesus Vigo goes over the steps to create a bootable USB to install OS X 10.9 (aka ...

Making a bootable macOS Big Sur USB drive is a quick and clean way to install a fresh copy of macOS on your Mac. This hands-on tutorial is valid for both the public and developer beta versions of ...

How to create a bootable USB to install OS X Your email has been sent Creating a USB Installer for Apple OS X 10.7-10.8 Creating a USB Installer for Apple OS X 10.5 ...

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25537273#p25537273:i88v4p9p said: barefootguru[/url]":i88v4p9p]For Mountain Lion I just ran the installer to put a ...

A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent ...

If you want the ability to perform a fresh and clean install of macOS High Sierra, then you should consider creating a bootable macOS High Sierra USB install drive. Not only will this walkthrough work ...

OS X Mavericks is available in the Mac App Store now, but it's only an upgrade—but if you want to do a clean install, you'll need to manually burn an installation flash drive. Here's how to do it.