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Yes, but IIRC in 1998 it was pretty clear floppy disks were on their way out. I had my first PC with an optical drive around 1994 and there was no question that was the way of the future.

Mice and keyboards work perfectly well on a USB-A connection, there is really no need to force everyone to buy dongles or to upgrade all your peripherals to USB-C.

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Floppy disks weren't replaced by burnable CDs, they were replaced by USB drives which didn't exist in 1994 or 1998. So the question of what was the way of the future wasn't even known when Apple removed the floppy drive.

In fact there is some parallel here; we all know that USB-C is the way of the future. Every phone, every laptop, every desktop will eventually have these ports for everything. It will replace every proprietary DC power plug. But right now, just like it was in 1998, the future isn't quite here yet.