Relevant detail: this potential removal of the driver does NOT affect normal CD-R / DVD-R functionality. It'll only prevent you from using them as if they were rewritable media.
Until 2021 when I got my new PC, I still had a bluray/cd/dvd burner, although I don't recall ever using it for burning anything. I guess that era is finally getting laid to rest.
Also, way back when it was a requirement to burn CD's and DVD's in order to install operating systems like linux, I don't ever recall using a CD-RW disc. I guess I thought of them a bit like potions in skyrim where by the end of the game I end up with hundreds of them and then never using them when I really needed to.
CD-Rs were more expensive than DVDRs because of RIAA lobbying to get a cut of every CDR sale since they were "only/mostly used for music piracy". DVDRs did not have this tax on them.
I've used this driver to stream a write to a disc. It's unfortunate that we can't have this technology, but it's always been janky, and these days it costs less than $1 of RAM to buffer a CD or $5 to buffer a DVD before writing.
I ripped a CD yesterday.
You didn't use this driver. It's not involved with reading discs or writing ISOs, only a specific floppy like mode available (not required) on certain combinations of drive and disc type.
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP