I never quite liked that new Macs do not come with any installation media anymore. In former times you got pretty optical discs. But since the DVD-less Mac’s and the App Store one get’s “nothing” anymore :-/
The trouble comes after some time, when you want to reinstall your OS. Case in point: I wanted to install the latest OS compatible with the black, polycarbonat (awesome, stylish [did I say black?] machines, btw. - except the breaking plastic border, unfortunately). Turns out the App Store does not allow to download my “purchased” 10.7 with errors such as: “Item temporary not available” (or so).
With billions on the bank account: Why does Apple need to be so unsupportive and impolite to good old customers - when they already do not support recent, security updated OS versions on the slightly older machines, ..?
So not only can I not (without hacking and tweaking) install 10.8 or 10.9 on this still nice Macs form just some years ago. I can not even download the last supported Mac OS (10.7) to at least get some latest (and not so greatest) security updates.
This state of this former computer company is really sad.
Thankfully I often burn some backup discs, especially for installation on more than one Mac, and thus found a self-burned Mac OS 10.7 Lion disc in my archive stack and could install it on this Mac in point after all.
And this is not only about the base OS - with the current App Store implementation we will often find ourselves with purchased software, that we can no longer download for older OS and hardware in the future.
Like today being able to install vintage (and often still pretty useful) versions of an OS, and applications. Often even expensive ones: Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat Professional, … and games. How much fun is it to boot up some vintage game from the Amiga, or old PC and play thru it again, with your kids, or friends?
What dim, brave new world, … :-/
