Here’s my thought process: If you care about game preservation/ownership, then having the full game on cart isn’t going to change anything once the physical product degrades to a state of no longer functioning— and these GKCs will almost certainly still be redeemable (as is all digitally owned software on Nintendo systems) for long after the network shuts down. What difference does it make the mechanism which the game is playable?

Honestly, the only people who actually own their games are the ones who have the ISO files saved to the Cloud. There is no such thing as “permanent ownership” of software compatible with your plug-in-and-play gaming hardware.

Because its dumb. Its a piece of plastic with nothing on it. Its like when they used to sell codes in the box at the store. Its just dumb, i am not articulate enough to explain it better than that

That’s been my understanding of most people’s perspectives on this matter, and it really does just come off as an elderly person shrieking in horror at the sight of a touch-screen phone in 2010. New technology is always met with fear. And it’s not necessarily as if I can’t understand why people are fearful, but it certainly does reach a point of irrationality. These GKCs are a great technological development IMO. No more code-in-boxes (well… maybe not totally gone, but present to a much lesser extent), third-party developers suddenly have a much easier time bringing over their brand new shiny AAA games to the underpowered (relative to PS5/XBSX) Switch 2, AND you receive the benefits of faster load-times, longer cartridge life, etc.

Im not scared of it, i just think it's dumb

Why would I want a physical cartridge that does not have the game on it? If I want physical, I want the game on it, I want to own it. If not, why wouldn't I just get digital, when it is at least tied to my account (hell, even if the servers go down, I can make a backup copy and store it somewhere). Game Key Cards have the worst of both words. It's e-waste of the worst kind.

Well according to firebush over here you fear the GKC. Some may even call us GKC-phobic

Much better than code in a box because it's not permanently locked to your account.

Other than requiring a download it has the same benefits as a physical copy. You can sell it to or give it to whoever you want. It still has a monetary value after purchase.

Cartridge > Keycard > Digital/Code

In what sense does the physical cartridge “not have a game on it”? Yes the literal game files on directly implanted in the memory of the cartridge… but what difference that make? As far as I’m aware, there’s no such thing as NS2 emulation— meaning that whether you can upload the cartridge contents to a PC is entirely useless for the time being. (And in the long term, both digital and physical will likely be able to have their files extracted to PC, so still no difference there.)

Unless you literally just want to that comfortable feeling of having a file on a cartridge…which, again, why? What’s the rationale in getting worked up over your game booting up via hardware accessing files versus via triggering a download to the system?

GCKs are about as much of e-waste as your standard cartridges, though with (supposedly) longer lifespans (so technically less waste in that respect).

The game key card is essentially a rental for an indefinite unspecified amount of time. 20 year olds might be cool with that because theyve grown up basically used to that idea, but those of us who are a little bit older actually understand the dystopian nature of it. Sure there are some who are older who couldnt give two shits either way, but this generally holds true, that younger people "dont see the difference." This basically boils down to what kind of world do you want to live in? A world where you can actually claim ownership over something you paid for, or a world where you just rent everything? 

Key Cards suck , if someone wanted to buy digital he would buy digital.
Nintendo has a long history that cares only for its profit and not for the customers, as the Nintendo 64 example that used cartridges to avoid piracy and made all the third party publishers to publish games on Playstation that had cd-rom.