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Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how Americans (USA) use the freedom as in this situation "they are necessary connections that offer you freedom" but don't even realize that's the same "freedom" they are stuck in the Imperial system; lack of standardization.

I for once welcome these changes; if companies were not brave enough to let go of old ports to standarize the USB we'd be stuck in the old days with dozens of dongles. At the speed of USB-C adoption, in ~5 years I hope it's the most used port and in ~10-15 I hope not to need any other port for any peripheral.

I wrote a small article about USB-C adoption: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/apples-new-macbook-pro-jus...

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You mean instead of the new days with dozens of dongles?

Gigabit ethernet. Video converters for each external monitor type, plus for the projector that you only use twice a year. The external mouse that you really like. The phone. The 2TB USB3 hard disk that you already have. The external DAC and pre-amp that turned your Mac into a high-quality 4 channel recorder. The non-bluetooth wireless mouse that you like so much better than Apple's. The SD card for the video camera that your kids use.

Exactly, I don't understand how "thin laptop" is an admirable goal when you have to carry around 1-3 dongles to get anything done. The regular Macbook with only one port is a fine machine for most people but these are billed as professional tools.

The goal is to fit in people's idealized, aspirational lives, because you can charge a higher premium for that over practical stuff.

Now you have to carry dozens of dongles, but the objective is long-term. I almost never need VGA/DisplayPort/etc for instance because it was standardized to HDMI (and now to USB-C). What port does that non-bluetooth mouse use? USB, right? Well before you'd have to check, because it could be using a PS2 as the keyboard. But now you know for sure they use USB if they use any port, which is a good thing. I remember my older cousin complaining about me having a USB mouse when I should have a PS/2 back in the day.

Forgot your phone/laptop charger? You can borrow mine as it will be the same USB-C. Yes, now it's painful, but in ~10 years it will be glorious. However, the problems of the switch are happening now while the benefits will come unannounced, which is a pity.

In ten years, Apple will have already issued ten different formats of phone and laptop chargers.

In 10 years I'll need to buy a new machine to replace the one I have now.

Honestly, this is one part where I don't see the big deal.

Currently for me, your list of examples is already three dongles (minidp-hdmi for hijacking hotel TVs when I'm travelling, minidp-dvi for my monitor at the office, minidp-vga for the projectors in the meetings rooms), and five different USB cables - usb-B for the usb hub in my monitor, lightning for my phone, micro-usb for my SD card, mini-usb for my camera, and micro-usb3 for my harddrive).

Everyone's annoyed that they're replacing 'The One Plug' with usb-c. But 'The One Plug' is a myth. For me, the only difference between a different connector for each device, and a different dongle for each device, is what spin you're putting on it. Either way I'm still going to need 8 cables in the bottom of my bag. The donglepocalypse is just the same list s/usb/usb-c/.

Wow, totally wrong article and I didn't even realize until now; I don't work for Tech Crunch, my bad. This is my article: https://medium.com/@fpresencia/the-usb-type-c-revolution-66d...

Its not an all or nothing thing. Apple could provide at least one "old-style" usb for legacy devices and would alleviate a lot of pain.

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