It seems more likely that we're in the midst of the early days of a transition away from USB-A cables to USB-C for most uses. There are a lot of advantages, namely connector size, reversibility, full power delivery, the unification of ports with Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort, etc. Plus, it's designed to be future proof for some time. Maybe I've missed something, but is there a specific benefit to USB-A beyond the current ecosystem and common use? Not that I'm discounting that. I'm not a dongle fan by any stretch of the imagination, though small USB-C hubs can alleviate the use of multiple dongles somewhat.
But I think that, as peripherals and other devices begin to switch over to USB-C, we'll eventually see dongle use become less and less common except for older peripherals and devices. And that's nothing new. Eventually, it'll go the way of the PS/2 port: included on motherboards, but not really used much (relatively speaking; the analogy breaks down a bit when you think of gamers and the mechanical keyboard community, where it still gets some use for n-key rollover).
Transitions between interfaces, as a matter of principle, suck. But we wind up going along with them because there's benefit to do so. I'm curious how this will play out in five, or even ten, years. Not that I want those years to speed by to find out :).
Razor or somebody could introduce a protocol using iso or interrupt or something and others could adopt it, the device would still support HID/bootp so it would retain compatibility. This would also offer better support for analog inputs or higher resolution mice.
Maybe I've missed something, but is there a specific benefit to USB-A beyond the current ecosystem and common use?
I'm worried about the DRM situation, myself. My suspicion is that all of the engineering effort that should have gone into ensuring cable quality and spec compliance is instead being spent on new, innovative ways to lock me out of my own hardware.
USB-A was large enough to fit entire devices (wireless, storage, crypto) inside the port, whereas the USB-C equivalents protrude, and risk getting snapped off.
But I think that, as peripherals and other devices begin to switch over to USB-C, we'll eventually see dongle use become less and less common except for older peripherals and devices. And that's nothing new. Eventually, it'll go the way of the PS/2 port: included on motherboards, but not really used much (relatively speaking; the analogy breaks down a bit when you think of gamers and the mechanical keyboard community, where it still gets some use for n-key rollover).
Transitions between interfaces, as a matter of principle, suck. But we wind up going along with them because there's benefit to do so. I'm curious how this will play out in five, or even ten, years. Not that I want those years to speed by to find out :).