I'd also add that distributing an installation file that requires no activation server is also sufficient. Physical media is getting kind of dated as seen by many devices no longer even including optical drives.
the lack of optical drives in consoles isn't because the tech is 'dated' it's because forcing users to online-only and preventing players from owning physical media they can let their friends borrow or sell used makes more money for gaming companies and gives them greater opportunity to collect your data and push ads at you. It gives them greater control to censor, patch, and remove content too.
Optical drives in computers can also be a nightmare for consumers. Try playing 4k bluray content on your PC for example. It wouldn't be unreasonable for people to complain to Dell that they bought a computer with an optical drive but can't play the media they own without jumping through hoops due to DRM like this: https://www.pcworld.com/article/606652/4k-blu-ray-support-is... so Dell saves themselves a lot of problems by removing those drives.