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.

Performing a clean install of macOS Tahoe can be a necessary task in some situations, offering a way to start fresh on a Mac.

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 ...

Mountain Lion is the second release of OS X to be delivered via the Mac App Store. Like with Lion, users can create their own bootable USB key installer to use as a recovery disk or to install ...

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 ...