This has been a big one for me in regards to pulling the trigger on an M1 (and I need something new for work very soon).

I found a whole bunch of YouTube videos of people using DisplayLink adapters such as various docks from Targus or smaller single adapters from StarTech (brands likely don't matter but this happens to what people are testing in these videos). They all show good results. Comments all say "DisplayLink is faking it and it's gross" but the people making these videos say "Sure, but it's not gross. It's working almost perfectly."

Anyone here have any experience or thoughts on this?

I'm not gaming or needing to do high level graphics or video editing on a 2nd or 3rd display. Just basic dev stuff and window management.