IMO, that's the real potential of this style of multi-use connector.
I am the "tech guy" for my circle of friends. Apple has lost all recommendations from me.
Maybe your friends need a new tech guy.
USB-A is certainly ubiquitous, which is a good thing. But it was never going to last forever. USB-C vastly improves on the physical design (reversible, symmetric, easier insertion, etc.) and I expect will carry us forward for even longer than USB-A has.
Thus Apple and everyone else are moving towards adopting USB-C, which means there will be ever more widespread and cheap docking and peripheral options. Yes, these transitions are painful but at least there are dongles this time, which hasn't always been the case. Such transitions are also a part of living during the historically amazing times of an accelerated tech curve. Enjoy that while it lasts!
The MBP is not bleeding edge on that curve, it is (kind of, sort of) near the top-ish. They made a lot of changes for the Future! without adding, you know, actual cutting edge components (from ram to the cpu/gpu chip(s)).
The whole thing breaks down further when you compound this new (old) hardware with the problems macOS will inevitably have. As each release, in my experience, has had significant issues for months with sometimes show stopping bugs. Can't wait to be served an ad on that shitty little screen...
I added an SSD and upgraded the memory to 8GB and it's more than fast enough for everything the normal person would do outside of kids that are trying to game (in which case you shouldn't be buying a laptop anyway).
In my case, mobility wasn't a requirement, so a desktop was fine.
If mobility is a requirement for you, maybe you could buy an iPad Pro or a cheaper laptop than you otherwise would buy, like the single-port Macbook.
[1] It wasn't available in India, and even if it was, it wasn't compatible with most Macbooks. The single model it was compatible with, it required two cables to be plugged in. And the monitor would have been out-of-date quickly, since it didn't support Thunderbolt 3.