All the other brands went along

We’re mindlessly bashing Apple here, we don’t need your sensible reasoning!

From my personal experience Apple products aren’t as great as the fanboys claim but are far far better than they haters say they are.
Where do you see Apple bashing? Most comments are about the general state of notebook ports.
Continue bashing, they use apple maths and only have ports on expensive models.
- That picture is from the tech specs page of the base 14-inch

If you got that kind of money to spend on a laptop, sure. I really don't.

Edit: to be clear, I know this is a stack of Mac's in OPs picture, but the development that the entry models have basically no ports at all is a more recent development. Having to pick the pro just to be able to connect your stuff without dongles or hubs is a bit insane considering the price (and price difference).

It really depends on what you use your laptop for. My 2013 MBP lasted 9 years and was how I got my work done. That comes out to 76¢ per day, and I make a fair bit more than that per hour.
But if you’re looking for a personal computer to surf the internet, yes, that could be cost prohibitive. But then it also matters less what device you buy.
As for ports, I’ve never needed a dongle on the 2013 model. I did need one for a USB A drive on the newest model, but this little thing has solved that problem easily. I didn’t even have to buy that since my monitor has USB A ports – I was just too lazy to reach around the back to use it every time. I’m not sure I understand all the complaints about the occasional need for a dongle.

I have an M2 Air, and all mine is missing from that is the SDXC slot, third TB4 and HDMI, and honestly, it's fine. A third TB4/USB would be nice for when I'm doing my radio show and have to plug in my controller and mic while also charing my phone, but I already have a hub so it doesn't bother me.

That said, the limited ports on my M1 mini are quite problematic. Two TB3/USB and two USB3, but one of them is lost to a DisplayPort cable for my second monitor. So I have a desktop computer that functionally has three USB sockets, which ain't great. But again, I have a hub, so it's not a huge problem.

An ethernet port is essential for any computer.

Exactly! What are you going to do if your router dies (or you mess something up fiddling w/ things)? I may only need it once/year or so, but when I do, it's really important and I most likely can't find the dongle.
An RJ-45 port could totally fit on there if they used one of those flip-down things that Dell has on their professional line.
- I just this … https://a.co/d/ijxaPae
  
  Only issue I have is max 65W PD, which should be fine for most laptops, but some laptops can charge at 100W.
It’s really not. I have one on my work laptop and have never plugged an Ethernet jack into it. That stays permanently in my dock and gets transferred to the laptop via USB-C. All other non-desk work is done via … WiFi. Shock! Literally can’t tell the difference when making money.

Power, HDMI, a few USBs, and headphones, all you'll ever likely need.

There's no doubt a dongle for anything else.

Yes, and it’s better to be downgrading USB-C ports with adapters than to be stuck adapting a USB-A port to USB-C or ethernet.
SD card reader is nice to have if you fuck around with cameras and microphones.
- Yeah, that can stay too.
Cause I live toting a do gle around and risk breaking the laptop because of it.
I did enough of that in the 90's, TYVM
- in the ’90s*
  
  Username checks out.
Cause I live toting a do gle around and risk breaking the laptop because of it.
I did enough of that in the 90's, TYVM
- in the ’90s*
Unless you want a desk setup. I have 2 monitors, kb, mouse, external dac, usb extension for thumbdrives, ethernet, usb soundcard for my mic and a kvm. That's dp, hdmi, 6 usb-a, ethernet and I still sometimes plug-in 1-3 devices to charge them.
- With that many connections, using a dock or a monitor with thunderbolt seems more practical than having a ton of stuff plugged into your laptop.
  
  It's not about it being practical. It's about if it's actually doable or not and how well it would work. Having the native ports will always be better that using a hub/dock.
  
  Strongly disagree. I use a laptop with a thunderbolt dock. Being able to plug in a single cable to provide power, connect my monitor, all of my input devices, Ethernet, and anything else in a single cable is awesome. If I had to plug 10 things in manually it would be quite cumbersome. I disconnect the laptop daily as I bring it between work and home, as well as use it, well, as a portable laptop.
  
  Kudos to you.
  What you could do now is step out of your bubble and consider that other people have different use cases and might need or prefer to have more native ports.
  You literally lose nothing by having more connectivity options.
  
  Except the device inevitably ends up bigger and chunkier.
  
  I don't see how that's so terrible. It would slightly phisically bigger (if that) but it wouldn't weight more and you wouldn't need to carry around a hub.
  
  Of course it will weigh more, those ports and the boards to drive them weigh something.
  
  If you're worried about 50-100gr then you should hit the gym my friend.
  Also, that hub you'd have to carry around weighs more than just having the ports on the laptop.
  
  Yeah, because plugging in one thing is way harder than plugging in six.
  This is a classic use case for a laptop dock.
  
  That's a very lazy, short-sighted and first world problem way of looking at this issue.
  Why would having the option of using either a hub or plugging things on separately be worse than only being able to use a hub?
  
  Because I don't want a chonky boi laptop to carry around.
  
  A couple more ports wouldn't make your laptop "chonky".
- It sounds like you need a desktop computer or a docking station.
  
  That's a use case for a laptop dock if ever there was one.
  
  Like I already said to another user: No. There are more than a few use cases that require a mobile set up for demos for example but that you’d also want to use in a desk setting. For example, architects or sw dev.
  Why are you making an effort to justify getting shafted by corporations?
  
  In this situation a hub is still better. You can pack all the stuff away plugged into the hub for easier set up. If your plugging that all into your laptop, you’ll need to plug it all back in again when you move.
  
  Which might be an issue for you but it's not for me. Also, I prefer the flexibility to have all of the ports I might need, natively.
  
  We aren’t justifying getting shafted by corporations. What I and the other person are saying is that at some point as your connections and cables multiply, you need to consolidate and streamline your setup for it to be more practical and actually mobile. I’m all for having all the basic necessity ports on my laptop, but when your desk ends up as a mess of cables and pulling out and putting back your laptop becomes bothersome with having to attach/re-attach everything every time, having a dock makes it much simpler. Subjecting yourself to setting up all those cables on both ends instead of just one end is the opposite of having a mobile workstation for quick setup and cleanup.
  
  You're still missing the forest for the trees.
  There's no real reason why you'd have to choose having a few ports + a hub or tons of ports + the option of using a hub.
  If you prefer to "consolidate" your devices to a single poinf of failure on an external device then by all means, go ahead. I just think that it's pretty crappy that options are being artificially limited and users of all people are making excuses for it.

Zero USB-A ports? Hell, no...

Yeah, props to Apple for bringing back the card reader and HDMI. When I bought my early 2015 MBP I specifically went with the older model because these ports were removed on the newer one which also came with the shitty butterfly keyboard as well which they've also since discontinued.

Yeah M1+ Macs are great. I say this as a diehard Apple hater