I have two very old bikes that have rim brakes and that is not a problem. For years the only bikes with better brakes were tandems with the weight of two people. Later the advent of mountain bikes made hydraulic disc brakes very attractive. On a standard single person road bike the use of disc brakes is overkill. With mountain bikes the use of disc brakes makes it much easier to use different wheels with no need to reposition the brake calipers.