Having separate dongles for network, audio, video etc. is even worse than just having specific cables for each

I think the annoyance comes from not having that many ports to begin with. If I had a whole bunch of ports, it wouldn't matter as much if I had to snap on a usb-c adapter to all the cables.

What is annoying is having to unplug something i need so I can plug in a flash drive

Why not using small usbc splitter? Like 7 in 1

Edit:

The splitter or hub gives you 3 usbs, usbc, hdmi, Ethernet, sd card reader and charge your device.

Similar to laptop docks for 1/10th of the price.

check it out
- Using a dongle to fix your dongle problems. 🤔 (you're not wrong, just thought it was funny)
- Because they heat very easily, suffer throttleneck problems (Ethernet+HDMI+copytoUSB = sudden drop in Ethernet)
- You can also have both, all the different ports PLUS one or two USB-C where you can connect a dongle.
And the old macbooks had so many ports!
Some of both. I remember a time where it felt like every time I got a new computer it had some different ports because they kept evolving. Modem/Ethernet, firewire 400/800, keyboard/mouse/USB, VGA/DVI/Displsyport(and mini versions of some). Sure, my old computer might have had a lot of different ports, but I might never have used some of them. For something like a laptop, I think 2x USB-C on each side is good for most, plus add hubbing to larger peripherals like HDD enclosures and displays and docks wouldn’t have to be so popular.

I feel like we’re just in the middle of a good transition period. Few years from now almost everything that can will be USB-C, we’re really just waiting out the replacement of all the existing devices and their incompatible ports.

Just get 1 dongle that you have everything plugged into. Then you only need to plug your laptop into 1 thing. Bam. Super convenient.

What’s more convenient is everything using the same connector, but who knows when/if that will ever come about…

You can get laptop "hubs" which usually have a few USB ports, a video connector or two (often HDMI and/or DisplayPort), ethernet, and some will function as a power cable, too (one of mine does and one doesn't).

I remember dongle life, they popped up in the very late 90's and survived until like 2008ish. They sucked then, and they really suck now. And yes, I still think having an all in one USB "dongle" is worse than having built in functionality.

then again, I have a framework, so it's kinda moot lol.

They put the dongle in your laptop
I don't understand why there's no splitter modules for the framework. I'm sure it's possible to put 2 USB C ports into 1 module

If you're referring to connecting a computer to the things you mentioned, just get a laptop docking station and you'll be just fine.

I'm confused, why do you need audio and video USBs? I'm not even sure what's meant by that like your computer has no audio without the Dingle?

Permanently Deleted

I guess you could use the same argument to say you're buying less when you buy your laptop. It's just arbitrary data I/O through USB with the software level interpreting it. They don't have to ship a DAC or wifi radio (if they actually omitted that) or... whatever you call the component that's part of a GPU that converts to HDMI - instead they offload that to the dongle or peripheral. In effect your device is just slowly being whittled down to a processor to USB bridge.

The headphone and USB ones are the ones I hate the most. My "flagship" phone doesn't work with any of my ~15 pairs of headphones (mostly earbuds but a few actually nice ones) without an adapter. Booting up a laptop into a nix OS that doesn't have wpa_supplicant etc. installed, no ethernet dongle or ethernet port, that's about to be annoying.

This is more about laptops/phones than desktops btw. Normal sized desktops usually still ship with every port, plus one or two USB-C's these days.
- Booting up a laptop ... that doesn't have wpa_supplicant etc
  
  If you french fry when you pizza you're gonna have a bad time.
  
  Seriously though, if you want to use wifi without some sort of supplicant you've fucked up.
I think the point was universal dongle with universal BLE / radio protocol. It could still have different encryption schemes and keys for each device / manufacturer by upgrading / installing drivers (so in software), but at least the radio packet protocol would be the same which would keep the hardware universal. Kind of like how smart home hubs (WiFi +/ Zigbee +/ Bluetooth +/ 433MHz / etc) work.

But we all know how creating a new "universal" protocol goes from experience (ie USB "standards").