Originally Posted by
Kapusta
There would be no confusion because they assumed correctly.
If I told someone I broke the caliper on my MTB, you would correctly assume it was a disc brake.
By your logic, it is time to retire the term “disc brake”.
No one really specifies "disc brakes" when talking about a car's brake system, do they? This used to be common when cars were sold with drum brakes still, but that hasn't been a thing for several decades. So yes, I assume at some point we will stop specifying "disc brakes" on bikes, and just start referring to them as "brakes". The same thing has happened with "radial" tires and "unleaded" gasoline.
That said, there are still loads of bikes sold with rim brakes, (which until 15-20 years ago were just called "brakes"). I'd say there's still a need to specify which type of brake system.