I had that complaint when working in a 5 story building and spending a third of my awake hours in meetings here and there.

That 30$ dongle become either a dangling bit you'll have on your laptop all day, it will be hiting stuff, get under the laptop, or worse case scenario stuck between the screen and the keyboard when you don't pay attention. As it'd always dangling it also become loose over time and get flacky accordingly.

Back then having a HDMI port was standard, no dongle being the norm. So yeah, having the choice between needing a permanent dongle or not, the answer is obvious.

What changed for me is WFH, otherwise I thing I'd still wish for no dongle until USB-C projectors and displays rule the world.

I have a monitor that acts as USB hub and power source, everything is plugged into it and then one single cable connects it and all of that and power to my company issued MacBook. Every meeting room used to have hdmi and DP and thunderbolt connectors but no more because every company issued laptop is now capable of thunderbolt (MacBook or dell precision series if you opt in for Linux)

If the company officially used many laptops with USB-C ports, it would make sense to have a USB-C to HDMI in every room with a projector, rather than making everyone carry their own.

Isn't plugging unknown USB-C-anything a huge security risk? It would be easy for a visitor to "forget" an evil adapter in a meeting room, and if employees are in habit of using them, boom.

Yes, I'm sure you could make one which acted as a USB-HDMI converter as well as a rubber ducky. sprinkle a few around, maybe bribe a cleaner to leave one in a meeting room, and you're set.

I think it's even easier than that; we now have cables that are normal shape and size of a USB connector that have an embedded system in them with a webserver, keyboard emulation, mass storage and wifi for a remote attacker to connect to.

It's also easier to just ask to quickly use the worker's computer to get a presentation going.

"Oh yeah sorry, my presentation is made in PowerShell instead of PowerPoint".

Yep. But so is a visitor dropping a bag of USB Mass Storage devices anywhere. Or a visitor with a proxmark grabber in his bag/suitcase.

Yes. Transition periods are always painful in that respect, worsened this time as a ton of “business” line windows laptops still have a HDMI port, same for Dell’s linux offering for instance.

When the first full USB-C Macs went out they definitely were the odd ones out in the company, and even now there’s still that split between run of the mill windows laptops and macs. Adaptors are more common, but it’s still not great.

> worsened this time as a ton of “business” line windows laptops still have a HDMI port, same for Dell’s linux offering for instance

This should not matter as long as they also have a fully functional USB-C (which I'd guess they do).

It plays more on the "why don't you just ... ?" question that raises when you ask for adapters being standard in every room.

It reminds me of asking to include decaffeinated pods in our recurring coffee orders for the espresso machine. The person had no opinion on coffee, but wasn't convinced they needed to accommodate for the minority that was concerned.

Luckily, we could always make it worse; there were times where full-sized ports were thought of standard yet we had PCs and Macs with mini-versions that were specific to the manufacturer (like mini-composite, AV-jacks, mini-VGA, mini-DVI).

I concur! I have about 3-4 different usb-c to what ever cables and one usb-c to female A port for thumb drives. My thinking has always been that having all usb-c “future-proofs” for future configurations… maybe I will have two HDMI external monitors in the future, rather than display port and DVI? Easy, just get two usb-c to HDMI cables when that scenario arises. With cables it allows for so many different configurations rather than proprietary modular adaptors that any given company might give up on, decide to sunset older versions for new ones with more features. After living what you just described for the last few years I can’t for the life of me fathom how this modular approach will gain mass appeal. USB-C with cables seems far more flexible to me.

Similarly, I bought some adapters that I carry around. I travel between a couple of locations, and I bring just one charging wall plug, and one 10-foot USB-C cable.

I have adapters that convert the usb-c to micro and lightning, to also charge my airpods, flashlight, etc. Each adapter is about 3/4" (2cm), female USB-C end, and male end of lightning/micro. I've glued them together so that it's just one little thing to take.

I hated carrying around 3+ cables, so this has been a welcome change.

It's true that I can only charge one thing at a time, but that's not an issue for me except in rare circumstances.

This sounds like a much better solution than mine. Rather than cables I should have gone with little adapters. Then I just need to take a couple usb-c cables and I can work with any legacy port.

As it stands I typically have four cables in my briefcase but at least they are still smaller than a mouse collectively.

what if I......want more than one usb port?

I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QXMNF1X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

One USB-C connection powers my laptop, connects to my monitor, as well as my wireless mouse and keyboard.

I love the modular laptop concept, but not for ports. For those who don’t want them hanging, these are perfectly color matched, made of the same kind of aluminum as the Air, and sit flush. I prefer it to having extra bulk to the base laptop.

https://www.amazon.com/Purgo-Adapter-MacBook-Thunderbolt-Rea...

That's a lot of extra steps to just having the damn ports.

Sounds like it's actually fewer steps when connecting+disconnecting to stop+start work.

I’d argue it’s less steps than preordering the framework laptop, pulling it apart and swapping modules around.

The average person can walk in to the apple store and walk out with a MacBook and usb c hub just fine.

Modules slide out, you don't need a screw driver or anything. It's all by hand. Hence the easy of use.

So no pulling anything apart. Think of it almost as each one as a game boy cartridge.

Example: my external USB mic (much better than the internal one) and my USB disk for daily local backups, connected to two different ports this morning (and many other days.)

I have never used these, but these came up in my searches:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub

https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/

I have this one, it's inexpensive, and works well: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Upgraded-Delivery-Pixelbook-A83...

But toting around a dongle is exactly the problem we're trying to solve.

Oh, I was just answering how to add ports to a laptop with only one port.

Well... This is an idea I never had lol.

I did the same. I don't love using them, but it's better than keeping different cables around.

Your unwillingness to understand or empathize is a form of dishonesty. Just because you personally never needed a dongle doesn't mean such situations don't exist or that they are somehow boundary conditions.

Did you actually read my post? If your use case is so esoteric that you actually must use a dongle… I doubt either end of that cable is USB-A.

Is needing an HDMI connection to hookup your laptop to a projector at a conference or in a meeting room esoteric?

You act like these situations are unimaginable when they are literally every day occurrences for some people.