USB flash drives used to be the hot new thing, but like all computer hardware, they’re now phasing out. You may have received a shiny new thumb drive on Christmas day. Here’s why you probably returned the plucky stick back to the store.
10. You have Dropbox, Ubuntu One, or some other free file hosting service and no longer need to ferry files by sneakernet.
9. You have a laptop, smart phone, or other portable computer. Some geeks take pride in running full operating systems off of thumb sticks. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.
8. You have a portable music player. While you could install CoolPlayer+ and other portable apps onto your USB drive, your iPod already functions as one, with a built-in player.
7. You have an ereader device or app. PDFs can go on USB drives, but what better way to enjoy them than on a Kindle or iPad?
6. You can’t remember what a gigabyte is. Some people deal in terabytes now. Anything less is pitiful; how else would you store your digital movie collection?
5. USB transfer is too slow for your needs. Another endorsement for Dropbox: It uploads and downloads unusually quickly for a free service.
4. WiFi + Shared folders / DropCopy / netcat.
3. BD-RE.
2. Viruses, privacy, it’s so easy to lose that tiny thing, where oh where did I put it last?
1. The Internet, or as hipsters say, “the cloud”.
The USB protocol is here to stay, in some form or other. It’s tremendously convenient to be able to connect various and sundry devices through the same port. But USB flash drives can only lose as cloud storage space becomes cheap as free and the Internet becomes ubiquitous.
