But I'm not an average user. You're not an average user. To an average user, what you've just said is "If your computer does not come with installation media, that means you need to buy another hard drive, then find disk cloning software and use it."
Yes, that's exactly what I tell all my computer-buying friends, even the ones whose computers do come with installation media. I tell them that if they don't back up, they
will lose everything they have on the computer. I enumerate all the things they have (photos, music, essays, PhD Theses, mail, art, etc., putting extra emphasis on those things that user does with their computer).
And then I tell them that, if they come to me asking how to recover something, I will ask where their backup is. I tell them in advance that if they don't have a backup, I will laugh in their face and chortle "I told you so! I told you so!" And I emphasize that that is
all I will do. I will not invest time trying to recover something they didn't think was worth backing up.
I even had to actually follow through on that threat with one friend, who is an IT professional and should know better, but he didn't bother to back up the family computer, despite my sternest admonitions. Later, when his daughter's computer went on the fritz, she came to me and said "Here's my computer. Here's what it's doing. Here's my backup. Help me, Obiwan." The message does get out.
Yes, a backup hard disk is a good thing to have. No, a requirement to purchase and then learn how to use a backup disk and cloning software is not in my mind an acceptable substitute for shipping a computer with installation media.
What "learning". You buy a drive, you plug it in, Time Machine says "May I use it?", you say "Yes", and you're done. (I tell them to buy two backup drives and SuperDuper, and back up both ways. For most users, that's enough.)
For most users, even if they have installation discs, they can't find them. Believe me, finding a backup is much easier than finding those worthless round flat shiny things that came in the box, or the accompanying unimportant scraps of paper with words like "Warranty" and "User Guide" printed on them. What's the use of shipping install discs for the much more than 80% of users who will simply misplace or discard them?
If a person buys a computer, I believe that person should have the ability to start that computer in the event of a hard disk failure without resorting to additional expenditures, such as additional hard disks or a reliable broadband Internet connection.
Oh, c'mon. Get real. That's like saying that if a person buys a computer that person should be able to use that computer forever, confident that it will never break down. Of course things break. Of course you have to pay for the replacement. And of course you sometimes need to pay for the replacement before the original breaks. That's why we have words like "insurance" and "warranty" in the language.
It's like saying that a person who buys a car should never have to replace the tires or re-fill the gas tank or change the oil. Extras like parking permits should be thrown in automatically. If the car does break down, they should still be able to drive it while it's in the shop getting repaired. Why should you need to arrange alternate transportation or pay for roadside assistance if you've already bought a car? Isn't that what the car is for?
