Some things to consider:

What are the advantages of a digital-first (or digital-only) release?

First and foremost, there is artist control. While no one can be certain what has transpired between Mr. Ocean, his label, Def Jam and Apple Music since a video stream started earlier this week showing Mr. Ocean woodworking next to the streaming service’s logo, the singer is a notorious and self-described perfectionist. (See also: Mr. West, Beyoncé, Radiohead.) After years of teases and blown deadlines, some last-minute musical tinkering is not out of the question given that “Boys Don’t Cry” will reportedly exist as an Apple digital exclusive for two weeks. Without there being a CD package to create, deadlines become more flexible.

Mr. Ocean wouldn’t be the first to hold things up by making last-minute changes: In February, Kanye West debuted his new album, “The Life of Pablo,” during a high-concept listening session at Madison Square Garden. That was on a Thursday, with many expecting that the album would be commercially available the following day, given that Friday is the industry standard for new releases. Instead, Mr. West continued to work on “Pablo” through the start of the weekend — even referring to the Madison Square Garden event on an updated track — and eventually released the album via Tidal in the early morning hours on Sunday. (Even then, he wasn’t done fiddling.)

This shifting schedule would never have been possible with the old system, in which an artist traditionally turned in a completed album to a record label or distributor weeks or months before release and left it to the company to get it into stores. For digital releases, the process can happen in less than a week (or even quicker, in cases like Mr. West’s).

The more traditional method — while allowing for big-budget marketing campaigns, including media appearances and pre-orders — also came with additional risks.

Can digital-only releases help prevent leaks?

As the author Stephen Witt described in his book “How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy,” most of the high-profile, early online leaks at the peak of the mid-2000s online piracy boom could be traced back to a single CD manufacturing plant.