> Why are some people so hellbent on removing functionality that other people use every day and can’t replace without significant expense and inconvenience?
I imagine you were outraged when laptops started replacing serial ports with USB-A, too.
I imagine you were outraged when laptops started replacing serial ports with USB-A, too.
I love USB-C on my phone and think it's a great upgrade, but I'm not interested in contributing to more e-waste to upgrade a laptop that doesn't need it, just so I can buy more ultimately e-waste adapters with USB-C.
For me, the best thing about USB-C on a laptop is universal charging. That's been a game changer.
USB-C just doesn't have many benefits over USB-A for a huge number of peripherals and cables. It's useful for bandwidth for one webcam I own, but for my mouse, my keyboard, my e-reader, and most other devices... there's no difference other than the cable shape. It's enough of a sidegrade (and enough of a pain in the ass to deal with adapters) that it just isn't worthwhile. And, as I said -- backwards compatibility is a big issue for me, since my personal laptop only has USB-A/Thunderbolt 2 ports.
Not to mention the fact that my raspberry pi 4, which I'll be using as a lightweight home server for years, only has USB-C for power input... USB-A for all other peripherals. A minority of devices in my household (only one!), between my personal laptop, work laptop, home server, car, and wall warts, use USB-C. Upgrading would require a lot of inconvenience and redundancy.