A number of people have to be mindful of their data usage so having the base version on a physical format does help especially as it comes in at 10GB.

Never sold a game in my life... So have to admit, that valid point never crossed my mind.

And being a PC gamer, it's all digital anyway, which is Blizzards primary market, so I guess their line of thinking is that their approach to PC would be applicable to the console market.

Which is my point.
Overwatch gets updated extremely frequently with relatively large patches (In comparison to the size of the base install), if you buy the game after any amount of time after the games physical release, you are going to be downloading the entire game or large chunks of the entire game, you don't end up saving much.

In saying that, the Switch is portable, go bludge some Wifi, somewhere... It's not like it's super common these days!

That's a very wayward response as not everyone is in the position to bludge wifi off anyone some people live in more rural locations while others are in smaller towns and such where its not common, not everyone lives in a major city and even in developed countries there are many areas outside of major cities that don't share the same conveniences. Getting frequent patches doesn't debunk the point in that someone has paid for a physical copy to avoid having to download the base game otherwise the is no point in even selling a box with a code in it you may as well just make the game fully digital.

I live in a rural country town that is 8+ hours from a capital city, wifi is still common... So that argument doesn't hold much weight for me.

I mean I don't disagree that having a physical variant would be good. - But... Overwatch is an online only game, it gets patched frequently so the data on the cart will be made redundant very quickly... You need good internet to play the game anyway.

Again, I use the argument of the Origins edition on the Xbox One/Playstation 4. - All the data on that disk is outdated, old and useless, if you were to try and install the game again today, you would literally download the entire game anyway.

Anecdotal response as you don't represent the same situation millions of gamers have across many countries and areas.

Splatoon 2 is an online only game as well with patches still doesn't stop it having a physical cart, people do have good internet a number of people just need to be mindful of their data usage and weren't planning to sac an extra 10GB on the base game.

Again someone paid for a physical cart so saying the will be patches down the line doesn't debunk what people paid for.

This is the first time that I have heard the box comes without a cartridge. The initial download is just 12.1GB, so why would they go this cheap? Pretty odd.

I keep hearing that they won't release it with a "Free Hongkong" Mei skin. It's a shame.

Splatoon 2 is NOT an online only game. It’s known for its online multiplayer, but it does have a single player mode and the Octo Expansion.

My mistake although the point with it having patches as well still stands.

Definitely Anecdotal. I am also probably on a completely different continent... And Considering how sparsely populated said continent is... You don't get much more rural. - Yet fixed wireless, fiber to the node, ADSL, 3G/4G, Public Wifi and so on is a thing. - If your internet is limited, don't buy an online only game to start with.

I mean either way, at some point if you intend to run the Overwatch on your console, you will need to download the entire game irrespective of physical media eventually, Blizzard churns through it's datasets pretty often.
Yes a Physical copy is a good thing to have, especially for collectors like myself, but I understand Blizzards reasoning... Either way, It's not that big of a deal, just don't buy it, PC is all Digital, consoles are heading in that direction, the future is digital.